After moving into its new 45,000-sq.ft. printing facility in April, Target Graphics, a contract screen printer based in Naperville, Ill., has been on a roll. This is the ninth year the company is vying for the award for four-color process imprints on darks, which will feature its original artwork for the first time.
“Right now, we’re doing a lot of research in-house to improve our printing process,” said Cole Lohman, sales and marketing coordinator. “We’re looking at all kinds of new foils, glitters and tough inks that we hadn’t previously considered.”
Target Graphics has also gotten rid of set-up charges on orders with more than 72 pieces. “We want our distributors to know that we do more than four-color process; we also do spot colors and simple jobs,” said Lohman.
To celebrate the move, the company, in conjunction with the ASI Show Chicago, unveiled the new facility in a Willy Wonka-themed distributor tour in July.
“We decided to play off the Chocolate Factory theme along with the idea of having a secret formula,” noted Lohman. “We have a secret hi-res, acu-color, four-color printing process that we don’t let out.”
Dressed in costume as “Tommy T-shirt”, an energetic Tom Vann, president, gave visitors a 75-minute tour of the facility. Highlights of the tour included the Perfect P.O. Percolator, a machine that shreds incomplete purchase orders and transfers them into Perfect P.O.s.; the Top-Secret Hi-Res Generator, which converts digital art files into separated and ready-to-print, four-color process screens; and the Everlasting Hi-Res Pictometer, a 50 ft.-wide T-shirt printing press.
“I started the business in 1987 in my parents’ basement and this is our second move,” said Vann. “With six automatic presses, we print nearly three million shirts per year and now we have more capacity and room to grow.”
Due to the tour’s popularity, Target Graphics is making plans for a second one in spring 2007.
“We depended on ASI for the first tour, but this time we’re going to work through regional associations to bring in more people from around our area,” he said.
For more information, call (800) 689-6461 or visit www.targetgraphicsltd.com.
