Dean Kearney started his printing company, Typeface Design and Print, around 18 years ago, and in that time he has steered its growth to become one of the major printing businesses in Hobart, Tasmania.
“We started out as pre-press, doing film work, then about five years ago we moved into computer to plate,” explains Dean. “We deal with files of any type and specialise in getting the result the customer wants. We can design the job, produce the artwork and deliver the finished product in a timely fashion.”
Typeface’s customers include small graphic designers to advertising agencies to government departments. “Besides doing the traditional print work such as stationery, brochures and annual reports – the bread and butter of the print business – we also offer large format posters and sign writing,” says Dean. As part of Typeface’s growth strategy, the company has moved recently into large format printing. Here’s where Dean’s new purchase comes in, which has helped the business to take another leap forward in growth.
Typeface recently installed the new Acuity HD 2504 wide format UV flatbed printer from Fujifilm Sericol, a machine the company claims is the latest breakthrough in wide format UV digital imaging technology, offering photographic quality printing at speeds that provide a quick return on investment.
“The Acuity is perfect for us,” says Dean. “We’ve been wanting to get into the short run one-off part of the market and the Acuity allows us to print full colour onto any substrate in a run of only one or two.
“It has opened up a large market segment that we could not easily deal in before. To be able to print onto things like Dibond and concrete or ceramic tiles is amazing. We’ve even printed onto house doors!” Dean had been looking to purchase another flatbed and had done his homework. “I first saw the Acuity at the Sydney Show last year and thought that it would be good for us to be the first in Tasmania to have one. I had been looking at buying another flatbed, and in doing my homework through the year I saw the flatbed market move quickly with a lot of new products coming out.”
The brilliant photographic reproduction quality of the machine and the ability to print onto almost any substrates. It’s great to be able to print a full sheet in one pass.”
At the heart of the new Acuity wide format UV flat bed printer is a new imaging technology that enables each print head to produce variable size droplets as opposed to traditional fixed droplets. Droplets as fine as 6 picoliter are jetted to produce sharp, precise images with smoother transitions and halftones. Jetting larger droplets up to 42 picoliter delivers denser, more uniform solid image areas. The result is image quality usually seen at resolutions of 1200 dpi or higher. Additionally, the Acuity delivers the high quality finish while using up to 25% less ink.
“The installation went smoothly and we were up and going the same day,” says Dean. “The Sericol installation team was very organised and very helpful. Matt, Steve and Liz have all been extremely helpful with after sales service on issues such as substrates and colour management. We couldn’t be happier.”
The Acuity is allowing Typeface to take on work that the company could not undertake previously, especially in the signage market and in cheaper, short-term colour corflutes.
“I would recommend the Acuity to anyone that asked,” says Dean. “I think the machine is robust and technically very capable of producing any job that you want.”
Fujifilm Sericol
www.fujifilmsericol.com.au
