6-Colour Press Draws New Customers To Printer

New customers for brochures, catalogues, calendars and marketing material are being drawn to Unicorn Graphics in New York City (USA) because of its Rapida 105 41-inch six-colour sheetfed press.

Equipped with aqueous coating and hybrid UV, the new KBA press, which was installed in May at Unicorn Graphics' 30,000 square foot operation in Garden City, Long Island, where it is also producing spot-coated print for the jewellery, fashion and corporate markets.

KBA North America said that Unicorn's Rapida 105 press was a step forward in technology and capability for the growing firm.

The press is equipped with in-line aqueous coating and UV drying, technology that Unicorn has never possessed before.

To cater for its growing demand in the commercial printing market, Unicorn found it necessary to add aqueous and UV to expand in to posters, commercial work printed on speciality substrates, as well as new design jobs.

Robert Lee, executive vice president of Unicorn Graphics, explained: "Ever since we installed the Rapida 105 41-inch press, we've been inundated with print brokers who are bringing us their most challenging and difficult work to produce.

The brokers have confidence in us that we can produce their jobs with the utmost quality and care and in a timely fashion and they encourage their customers to give us their most challenging work.

The new press gives us faster turn-around, higher quality and in-line capability to print and coat our products." One customer, a university, was using many vendors to produce its printed work but once it saw the quality produced by Unicorn's Rapida press and the difference between the work of its other print suppliers, the university switched all of its work to Unicorn, added KBA.

Lee added: "We're getting great feedback from our customers and brokers.

They like the different looks and techniques that we can accomplish on the KBA press.

We're getting a much better solid and sharper dot on the KBA press and we're able to print beautiful gold and silver metallic that we couldn't print before.

We're printing on gloss and matte stocks and spot coating different brochures.

The press has opened up a wide range of different techniques that we couldn't offer before and now we can.

We are able to quickly dry all of our jobs with our aqueous coating unit." Ed Heffernan, KBA North America's sales representative, commented: "Unicorn Graphics has raised the quality bar over its competitors.

Since the installation of the Rapida the company has seen an influx of new jobs that require the quality, sophistication and fast turn-around that Unicorn can accomplish." When Unicorn Graphics began producing calendars in-house rather than outsource the work, the firm used a small-format 20-inch one-colour to four-colour press.

After taking on more commercial work, the firm installed a 40-inch four-colour press from a different manufacturer.

Today, Unicorn produces two million multi-colour calendars for the US market posting US$7 million in annual sales.

Lee explained: "Our goal is to continually meet and surpass the needs of our customers, no matter how difficult the job.

We feel that our KBA Rapida is allowing us to move in to new markets that we couldn't serve before and broaden our reputation.

Our customers already know us for our commitment and determination to serving them.

We don't have a sales force and we continue to gain new customers through good word-of-mouth and our excellent service." Unicorn is also planning to hold an open house event on February 21, 2008 in conjunction with KBA.

The gala will include press demonstrations, seminars and discussions with paper, ink and other graphic arts suppliers.

Unicorn Graphics was established in 1987 as a family-owned printer to support its sister organisation of calendar publishing.

After establishing itself with its nationwide clientele, the company expanded to include commercial printing as well.

The firm grew at its 8,000 square foot College Point location in Queens, outside New York City, adding a saddle stitching line and a process-less CTP system.

Today the company is a multi-million dollar, multi-location commercial printing and calendar publishing business owned by John Lee, the company's president and brother of Robert Lee.

The firm operates a west coast printing plant in Pico Rivera, outside Los Angeles, California.

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