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The HP Designjet Z5400 offers the flexibility of having two media sources available simultaneously. Thanks to its new wide-format capabilities, Express Imaging was able to produce much of the high-end work for Utah's first ever Comic Con. Z5400 PostScript ePrinter, a multi-roll, wide-format printer created especially for copy shops and small commercial printers. The 44-inch device is ideal for printing large-format applications that require high image quality, such as posters, photos, canvases, backlit prints, indoor signs, point-of-sale posters, line drawings, and maps. "We have a huge variety of things that we can print now that we couldn't before, such as photo enlargements on really, really premium photography paper," Harrop explains. The Designjet Z5400 has also helped improve production. "It has two rolls on it. We can just keep our most popular roll on it at all times. For the odd projects, we have just that one roll to switch between. That keeps us from switching out every material every time. For example, color blueprints are one of the biggest things we produce here—a lot of the local construction companies and architects use it—so we keep that paper in." The Big Splash! This year Comic Con came to Salt Lake City in early September—the first ever held in Utah—and it was a major boost for Express Imaging. As Harrop recalls, "We printed lots of posters with comic superheroes, lots of 12x18s—tons and tons of those, which the artists could sell right at their booths." The company also produced backdrops for displays, postcards, brochures, flyers, and "anything to help advertise not only the superheroes but the artists who drew them." It was, in short, "a big deal. We printed thousands of things. A lot of the artists wanted to get their things in early, so we were busy getting jobs ready for them for most of August until the convention started." Picture Perfect For more information, visit MyPRINTResource.com/10004781 20 QUICK PRINTING / December 2013 Perhaps the main achievement for which 2013 will be remembered, Harrop says, is that Express Imaging became able to offer a larger variety of products and services to its customers than ever before. "We have gained a lot of new photographers that we couldn't do anything with before. Now we can put their work on canvas." In fact, Harrop and his team are partnering with several of the local photographic shops. "We offer them a professional discount. They can then can turn around and offer some kind of package deal to anyone they're taking photos of and say, 'We'll give you this amount of photos, and for this amount of money we'll include these enlargements.' Then they come to us to get them done." For the year to come, a major goal for Express Imaging will be to aggressively market its work on canvas, "and to push the photography side of things," Harrop explains. "In the last three months we probably have had a total of three orders of canvas, so we'd like to get the word out. People just don't know that we offer that." The same goes, of course, for the rest of the growing list of products and services, he adds. "We are looking to find small businesses around us, and let the customers that we already have know about the new things we offer, and grow our company that way." ◗◗ w w w. M y P R I N T R e s o u r c e . c o m