“Bringing everything in-house gave us the sort of control we need for the type of clients we work for - it’s tight deadlines, everything is custom made, nothing is off-the-shelf work,” says Dean Rowland, owner of Signwave Newtown in inner Sydney, where the machinery line-up includes HP Latex printers ranging from 1600mm to 2600mm in width and an HP FB500 Flatbed.
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| The factory floor at Signwave Newtown, NSW |
Rowland, who’s also 50% owner of the Signwave Australia Master Franchise, says HP technology supplied by Celmac has been key in the continuing year-on-year growth of Signwave Newtown, established in 1999 in King Street, Newtown, now based nearby in a 750sqm facility in inner-west Marrickville.
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| Dean Rowland, Signwave Newtown |
“Our main focus is arts and cultural organisations and we’re doing lots of festival work for things like Sydney Festival, Sydney Film Festival, Sydney Writers Festival and other festivals that happen throughout the year,” says Rowland. “We also do a lot of retail shop fronts and wall graphics for local businesses, and we work with local councils and schools.
“We’re producing exhibition graphics, event signage, custom made outdoor stands, banners, vehicle graphics, corporate branding, a lot of bespoke stuff. We do 95% of our fabrication in-house, from laser cutting to CNC routering, broaching of all types of materials, whether it be flexible or rigid substrates. We also fabricate lightboxes and illuminated signage with LED lighting.
“Bringing everything in-house gave us the sort of control we need for the type of clients we work for - it’s tight deadlines, everything is custom made, nothing is off-the-shelf work. The Newtown centre was the first Signwave business to take all production inhouse and move on from the days of the vinyl cut signage to being able to produce large format work and custom-made signage inhouse. A lot of Signwave centres around the country are now also doing the majority of their work inhouse to have full control from production to installation.”
Rowland has been using HP technology for 20 years. “I’ve always been a lover of HP and we’ve been through all of the different stages of their machines over the last 20 years, from water-based to pigment, to solvent, to latex and UV.
“We like the latex technology, the green aspects and the healthier working environment that it provides in comparison to solvent. Our latexes range from just the standard printers to billboard size. We also have a HP UV flatbed, and a HP photographic printer for high-end artist reproductions.”
All of Signwave Newtown’s HP machinery is supplied by local distributor Celmac. “We just find their service is great,” Rowland says. “We work with Jonny Rumney and Aushik Patel at Celmac and their knowledge of the machines, as well as which materials and products work with different types of technology…they’ve just got that well and truly wrapped up.”
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| Signwave Newtown in Marrickville, Sydney |
Signwave Newtown employs ten staff, from sales, accounts, through to installation, with multi-skilled production staff that work as a team on large projects.
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Signwave Newtown produced this work for an Arthur Boyd exhibition |
