2005 - UV Printing & New Premises

New inkjet print machines using ultraviolet curing inks had started to come on the market and they had many advantages over traditional screen-printing. They were more environmentally friendly, with faster print production speed, immediate drying and practically no set-up costs compared to screen-printing. The one big drawback was the price of a decent print machine in Europe ranged from 200,000 to 500,000 euro! I hopped on a plane in October 2004 to attend the annual graphic imaging convention in the U.S.A. Luckily, a new UV printer was launched at the show by the Colorspan company which was ideal for a small sign business like ours with low volume production. With a 50,000 dollar price tag it was our only chance to enter the UV printing market. The congested premises we were renting was becoming more and more unsuitable for the business, so a few months later I finally decided to take the risk and try to kill two birds with one stone (and might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb!) After first dumping all the screen-printing equipment into a truck from a local scrap yard we moved to our new premises in August 2005 and purchased the UV printer from a Colorspan agent in the UK at the same time. It was a decision I never regretted. The new printer was a huge improvement to our service and we purchased a second UV printer the following year. Now, the tables had been turned on screen-printing companies which could not compete with short-run printing on UV printers. The job that previously took days to complete with screen-printing could now be finished in hours. Our new abode was a joy also with ample work space for all inside and ample parking space for all outside.