Product category:
Printers, paper and packaging
News Release from: Canvas R Us
Edited by the Marketingservicestalk Editorial
Team on 08 October 2007
Photo on canvas offers portable,
affordable art
The large format print market has opened up not only massive opportunities printers, but has made available to the public fabulous art and original wall-pieces to decorate living spaces.
By being able to have our memories captured, printed and mounted in canvas - whether an exact replica of the original photo or transformed to a unique image by a graphic artist, large format printing can now enhance our life in ways it has never done before The technology available today to enable companies to do this has evolved and, as such, so has the markets
Richard Lewis is MD of canvasRus, the retail arm of Portobello Art, which grew from the demand and popularity of the photo to canvas trend and one of the first companies in the UK to offer this service to the public - explains why this is a trend that doesn't seem to show any sign of fading away.
From their early beginnings they were printing around six pictures a day on a trusty, now retired, HP Designjet 2500 series.
Today they can run up to 200-300 pictures on four HP Designjet 5500 series and have on order a new Designjet Z6100.
From their inception just over five years ago, canvasRus started supplying the large supermarket chains such as ASDA and CostCo but demand versus cost proved to be too much and this market soon evaporated as other countries came into play.
This also seemed to be the case when they moved to good independent stores and so they turned their focus to smaller retailers.
However, being a digital print company they were unable to establish and continue the complicated network of communication links for each outlet and subsequently their move into an end-user audience - which worked.
Not surprisingly the influx and popularity of home improvement shows on TV offering affordable design ideas had an enormous influence on people's tastes and bright printed canvas on muted, plain walls gave birth to the photo on canvas fashion.
Richard Lewis said: "CanvasRus and Portobello Art work well together and it is this main core customer, the corporate branding, which is our bread and butter.
"However, I'm pleased to see a new audience emerging, the family audience, whose demands for canvas art of family or children portraits 'with a twist' has exploded".
Although the family-orientated customer takes another big slice of their pie, canvasRus, with their history, experience and knowledge of digital printing, also have their more serious side and provide graphic and photographic professionals alike and whose requirements can be more challenging.
"This is where having the right equipment is paramount," continued Lewis, "our equipment is chosen by two main factors; repeatability and reliability.
"This is imperative in our business that good quality printers work well again and again, or, and I'm realistic in the fact that not everything is perfect, if something does go down that it is easily maintained and fixed.
"Printing on canvas can also be very expensive if the printer fails and in all these cases the HP Designjet series has proved excellent, hence our loyalty".
Lewis uses the PosterJet RIP to run the printers and again states the reason for choice as being simple to use and absolutely reliable.
"Ninety-nine per cent of the time running PosterJet is a doddle, which is what any business wants.
"Performance of output with this RIP on the Designjet's is stunning - you can go from a 2meg image to a nine and a half meter graphic or 3" square to poster-size in no time, and the RIP very rarely locks up.
"If it does - you just re-boot." Richard believes that business has grown due to people wanting to deal with a company that knows what they're doing and unlike other companies who have set up purely on the back of this trend, the canvasRus team derive from Portobello Art which has been in business over 20 years.
They are an established, stable and reliable company and deal with some of the most prestigious interior design companies in the world.
"Future plans for our continued growth and expansion include keeping one step ahead of the game in terms of technology and with the arrival of the new Designjet Z6100 series we will also be trialing the new PosterJet Version 8 RIP.
"Although there is better ink saturation on the HP printer and media I'm excited about the Z series as they have the extra blacks - which will mean an even more stunning picture quality.
"We're not getting rid of the 5500 series just yet, as, to be honest, it is such a good machine it still stands up to anything else in the market today".
CanvasRus are also branching out into the printed papers and wallpapers market - they even supply their large format print supplier, London-based Perfect Colours.
"We have supplied Perfect Colours with canvas for exhibitions in the past and more recently their new HP showroom.
Our relationship with them is again, based on reliability of service and support.
"Their knowledge is unsurpassed on large format digital printing and being able to recommend the best tools for our job is of major importance.".
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