Wide Format Imaging

When the Epson Stylus Pro 9800 was rolled out in May 2005, the fine arts community immediately embraced it. Fine art photographers, artists, painters, giclee studios and aficionados of giclee were all lining up to get an Epson 9800 into their studios. And, while the printer is ideal for that market, it also can fill a lot of needs in other areas such as the corporate environment as well.

One corporate user of the 9800 is WFI's own publisher Cygnus Business Media who, for the past six months has been using the printer to output their trade show graphics and other promotional materials.

"When you are in a marketing role in any company there is always a variety of printing needs. There's trade show graphics where our needs can range in projects from seven feet down to a counter card for a display. You also might require a high quality proof of a cover or an ad to show a client," says Kathy Magrane, marketing manager at Cygnus Business Media.

"I've been working with the Epson 9800 for six months. But it seems like I've had it longer. I've done so much with it in that short period of time. During that time, I've printed about 80-100 different products. Products ranging from large display graphics, presentation of mock-ups, new cover or design layouts for meetings. The versatility, the turnaround time and quality make it a must have in any size corporate environment," she says.

Many of the jobs that Magrane must tackle sometimes start with a last minute phone call. "Just recently, I had gotten a last minute request from the publisher of one of the magazine's we print, Modern Jeweler. There was a trade show coming up in less than a week and he needed to have counter cards for the show printed up but that particular issue hadn't printed yet. So we couldn't produce the counter card like we normally did. The publisher said he needed about 25 of the different ads that ran in the book created for counter cards for the show. We had a window of about a day if we wanted to wait for the issue to print. Given the nature of the jewelry market, the reproduction quality had to be high. So this project is the perfect case for having an Epson 9800 in house. Like the calvary, it came to save the day," she says.

She continued, "I know we tend to think of these products as producing large graphics, they also produce small graphics too. For this particular job, we ganged all the ads into one file and printed them out on the 9800 and then cut the ads out individually. So we had the control to print them out all at once, trim in house send them out to be laminated the next day and thus turn job around in 24 hours. All at one-third of the cost," she adds.

Another recent request also came from Modern Jeweler. "The June cover of Modern Jeweler featured a photo of actress Sophia Loren. There were two last minute requests to have it not only printed for a tradeshow but also for a silent auction for a charity event. I had two hours to meet both needs and we were able to get it done quickly," she adds.