Using inkjet printer as a weapon, expands the business in Sign & Display

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■LABTOKYO Co., Ltd.（Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo）
Industry: Genaral Lab (Photo shooting, processing, finishing, creation of indoor/outdoor advertisement, and creation of database.)

Introduced printer: JV4 series (solvent and water-based ink), JV3 series (solvent ink)

Left: Mr. Kobayashi (Technical Manager)
Right: Mr. Motoi (Technical section chief)

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Analog to digital. Photography industry radically changes.

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Located close to Ministry of Defence, LABTOKYO has been leading the analog photograph industry with color printing and dupe since founded in 1978. Especially, Ginza business office has been functioned as the window of the major advertising agence and the mass media. They have supported the front line of the scene of the creative for a long time.

Being in this circumstance, they integrated Kojimachi business office into the headquarters in 1996, and so did Ginza business office ― The digital functions are concentrated. Mr. Kobayashi who is technical manager talks about the background as follows.

"As the infrastracture such as the internet improved, it was becoming meaningless to have the office close to the clients. The submission of manuscript became to be done by sending the digital data. Our strong point was the printing from the negative, but the wave of the digitalization made it difficult to continue this analog way. From this, our structure and operation are dramatically changed with in a few years."

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Long time has passed since "The age of the digitalization" came, but no industry radically changed like the photograph industry. Now, the color printing has become the world of the photo enthusiasts.

"Expected that the advent of the digitalization, we introduced the digital device thirteen years ago, and we made a full transition in 2007. Then, what we aimed at was to accomplish the digital printing which quality was not far behind from the analog printing. We originally named it "DTP (Desk Top Printing)", and pursued the color expression that we had accumulated."

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The creation of the display advertisement is "The neighbor work" in the photo industry

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The conventional color printing is accompanied by the panel processing. The creation of the display advertisement at the exhibition or event is the specialty of them, and the sign and display industry was its extention. The creation of the display advertisement existed as a part of their job since its foundation, and became to focus on the sign and display business after shifting to the digital printing. There are a lot of companies which are related to sign graphic, but the exclusive high quality of the color expression stands them out.

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"The most concerning thing about introducing the inkjet printer was, whether the near-photo quality was attained or not. When switching into the digital, it was the easiest way to assign someone who was used to use Macintosh, but we dared to choose staffs from the technical department handling color printing. This is because the color expression was our lifeline. We thought that the manipulation of the printer would be achieved soon, but the skill to judge the color cannot be achieved overnight." said Mr. Kobayashi. The first inkjet printer that they introduced was made in America, but they replaced it with Mimaki's and other company's machine. A few years ago, they introduced JV4 and JV3. They used other company's printer at the same time, but in 2007, other company's printer was replaced with MImaki's printer, so only Mimaki's printers left.

The machine performance from the user's point of view

One of our business partner had Mimaki's printers, and we were surprised at its amazing finish. The incident made us consider the purchace of Mimaki's printer. Then we compared the print speed and the image quality with all the commercial printers as usual. As a result, JV4 and JV3 had the best quality between all of them.

When introducing new machine, they gauge the performance of the printer form different points.

"As we use printers everyday, trouble may lead to the fatal risk. So we put importance on not only the image quality and print speed, but also the material of the legs which support the printer, and the stability when moving the print head. There is another important point ― the service support system. It is important whether the service person comes quickly when printer is in trouble. We think Mimaki's customer support system is really reliable.

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Finally, we asked Mr. Motoi who is the technical section chief about the usability of Mimaki's printer.

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"There are no complaints on the image quality and the print speed. The stable production established credibility in the workplace. We often handle window graphics. Accordingly we frequently take advantage of the white ink where JV3 play an important role. The propotion is fifty/fifty between printing white under the color and printing white only. The other company does not recieve the order of window graphics with printing white ink only, so it became a part of the display business, which is a piller of the creation of the display advertisement."

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