Customers almost jump for joy

When they see the amazing look and feel of their prints for the first time.

Creative Visual Solutions Inc., Oakville, Canada. A Nyala LED large format printer is helping Creative Visual Solutions Inc. to expand their offering. CVS has deep roots in show booth construction, and is now positioning its printing division as a standalone unit in order to broaden the portfolio. Specialized applications and outstanding print quality are already boosting business.

CVS Portrait © swissQprint

Work with CVS and you will soon notice that they are a bunch of people who love their work, with a positive attitude that shows in every project they tackle. Indeed, most of the crew have been with the company for a decade and more. Together they specialize in displays, exhibits and experiential environments, providing design, fabrication and event logistics to a wide variety of industries.

High efficiency, no downtimes

Quite a lot has changed at CVS, starting even before the swissQprint large format printer arrived in early 2018. First up was preparing the space where Nyala LED would be operated. “We built walls, installed humidity control and gave the room a thorough clean,” recollects Sean Clarke, owner and President of CVS. As he knows, “A precision tool needs a clean environment for it to function properly.” Now installed, the new printer has accelerated turnaround tremendously: Jobs that took several days with the previous equipment are now completed within just one. “Not only are we far more efficient, there are also no downtimes at all,” enthuses Sean. “The Nyala LED is super reliable.”

New possibilities, increased profit

Also when it comes to applications, the Nyala LED has opened up new possibilities. Most center around varnish printing. Sean explains: “We are promoting spot varnish right now.” Nyala LED covers the print surface with effect varnish selectively or entirely to create visual and tactile surprises. “Our customers just love it,” smiles Sean. “The first job we did with spot varnish, we were really happy with. What made it really special was getting the feedback at how excited the customer was with the final product, specifically the spot varnish”, adds Agim Bekteshi, the man who operates the Nyala LED.

CVS Portrait © swissQprint

Agim Bekteshi: „The quality stands out compared to other equipment I have run in the past.“

Another application with customer appeal is droptix, a 3D effect exclusive to swissQprint. It works by printing miniature lenses directly onto transparent substrates such as acrylic glass. The special thing is that these lenses too can be placed selectively, for instance surrounding a product picture. CVS sees great potential for droptix in booth designs. As Sean is keen to point out, “These prints with depth effect are a real eye-catcher.” Apart from special effects, the Nyala LED simply delivers premium print quality. Beyond standard CMYK, the flatbed printer offers five freely selectable color channels – so CVS chose to have some of them equipped with light inks for fine gradients and natural skin tones. “We have seen a great improvement in terms of print quality,” says Sean, “and so have our customers who really appreciate it.” Agim adds: „First and foremost the quality stands out compared to other equipment I have run in the past, but I really love the speed. I do not have to stand and wait for the print to finish.“ The company prints anything rigid on the Nyala LED, usually custom one-offs and low-volume print runs for branding integration into displays.

CVS Produktion © swissQprint

Core business at CVS is booth fabrication for trade shows, open house and experiential events.

CVS Air Canada © swissQprint

Expanding capabilities

At present, the core business at CVS is still booth fabrication: customized branding of booths, walls, bespoke devices for trade shows, open houses and experiential events. Sean tells of a project for Air Canada. CVS created custom displays that would go into hockey rinks across the country. They manufactured the engine and adapted the background images depending on the rink it was going to.

In the early days, CVS used to outsource printing completely; investment in this area only came later on. Today, graphics still represents just a minor fraction of business – but this is about to shift. Sean explains: “Our business involves large jobs with fast turnaround, so we need high output and high quality combined.” Nyala LED already delivers on the quality front, while holding plenty of productivity potential for CVS to tap into when needed.

They are currently restructuring the facility to remove processes and equipment no longer used. After that, the plan is to position the printing division as a standalone business unit. As a first step in this direction, CVS is continuing research and development with the printer on different substrates. PVC, acrylic glass, aluminum and wood are the present mainstays, but they know that Nyala LED can handle way more than that: “This is a really versatile printer.” Sean isn’t just talking about the variety of materials it can handle; he also has ambitions to explore layering and other special printing techniques to expand capabilities at CVS. Eventually, they would like to offer more and unique print-and-cut display solutions for market segments such as in-store decoration and POS displays. All of this is bound to keep the workforce highly motivated and strengthen confidence among the CVS customer base, which stands to gain from the company’s special touch for promoting their brands and products.

CVS © swissQprint
Company
Creative Visual Solutions Inc., Oakville, Canada
Segment
Booth and display construction
Established
2003
Employees
28
Printer
Nyala LED
References
Corus Entertainment: Trade show exhibits
Starshot Ventures: Experiential marketing displays
Mabe/GE appliances: Retail displays
Canadian Tire Corp: Convention and instore displays
Dairy Farmers of Canada: Signage and exhibits