In Focus Vol. 3 No. 11

Carnival of Signs: Taking Advantage of In-House Printing

Jon Otteson owns Jon Ivan Otteson Photography in Hutchinson, Minn., and is a partner in a shaved ice stand at the Minnesota State Fair. Like every business large and small, Otteson’s Hawaiian Shaved Ice stand would benefit from significantly increasing its visibility in a crowded marketplace.

Otteson took matters into his own hands and decided to take advantage of the tools in his photography studio - namely an Epson 7800 and the expertise of his LexJet account specialist, Bill Weiser - and printed big, bold, and colorful signs for that extra edge at the State Fair.

“We want to catch people’s eyes from all over the venue, and once they see the sign they’re not thinking about the sign so much as they are thinking about purchasing the product,” says Otteson. “I’ve printed a lot of fine art projects, but this was our first signage project so it was a little nerve-wracking. Fortunately, it worked out very well and we learned a lot along the way. The printer and the material were both perfect, and compared to what we had before the signage is 50 times nicer.”

Of the lessons he learned during his first sign project, Otteson says the most important was the selection of the material to which he applied the prints. He used a black PVC material, which began to warp in direct sunlight and heat. On his next sign project Otteson says he’ll use something like Alumalite, which has a corrugated plastic core sandwiched between two pieces of painted aluminum.

Otteson created a total of 12 signs for the shaved ice stand flanking each side of the structure. The images were printed on LexJet TOUGHcoat AquaVinyl in 24-in. wide sections that would be applied vertically instead of horizontally to minimize the length of the seams.

Otteson is also working with an auto body pro who trial-coated a two-part urethane to coat the printed vinyl for added UV protection. For this project, Otteson finished the vinyl with a lacquer-type coating. The signs on the bottom of the structure are applied behind plexiglass.

Otteson learned that it’s important to let the vinyl dry completely after coating with lacquer and urethane to outgas before placing it behind something like plexiglass as the vinyl will tend to bubble and lift if it hasn’t cured properly.

“It would be nice to have a wider printer for this type of project, but I was able set it up in Photoshop so that everything aligned properly,” says Otteson. “We completed this project in just a few weeks, which involved building the framework, mounting the substrate, printing and spraying the images, and applying the vinyl to the substrate.”