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Creative Digital Printing discovers the power of the Rastek

Tasmania’s Creative Digital Printing recently installed a Rastek hybrid UV printer to grow their printing capabilities and allow more projects to be printed locally in Tassie.

Creative Digital Printing’s Mat Gardner found the range of work that they could offer to their customers a bit limited as they could only output on standard inkjet printer/cutters. Their typical work included adhesive vinyls, banners and photographic enlargements.

Mat said “with these options now available at most sign companies, we thought it was time to step up to a flatbed/hybrid printer and offer a bit more than our opposition. Our time frame to make the purchase was fairly short so we did a lot of research on the net and made a few phone calls to different suppliers. After comparing every feature of all the machines available and weighing up the costs, the decision, in the end, was easy. The fact that the Rastek is an all in one unit with no additional costs, was a big selling point as well as the ability to print white, which until now has been limited on machines used by other Tasmanian businesses.”

Being able to print direct to rigid substrates has opened up a huge market for Creative Digital Printing that previously they were unable to compete in. One of the reasons for their short purchasing time frame was the upcoming Tasmanian state election (March 2010). Mat went on to say “the decision has already paid off with a lot more work than we ever expected, in a time of the year that can be quiet. Other jobs like real estate and safety signage that were more suited to screen printing are now open to us as well.”

Word of mouth has led Creative Digital Printing to receive a lot of interest from other local sign and printing companies that would normally subcontract interstate businesses to produce work for them. “This is an area that we think has a lot of potential” says Mat, “part of the massive increase in workload for us over the last four weeks has been from this area.

“The service from iMedia has been great. I have known Emanuel (Baldacchino – iMedia Sales Executive) for a few years now, and he was the first person I called when we decided to purchase a new printer. He knew exactly what would suit us and is always able to answer any question we have, openly and honestly. This is the first printer of this kind for us and the tech service has been fantastic. Daryle (Burnside – iMedia Service Technician) really knows the product and is quick to solve any issue we might have, explaining it in terms that us non tech people can understand.

“The sales department have also been great. One of the big learning curves for us has been the speed at which you can produce work. Which means you can go through a lot more ink and material than we're used to. On the occasions where we have used more ink than we expected, the sales staff are quick to ensure that they can get it too us in the shortest possible time.”

Mat summed up his new purchase by saying “I would definitely recommend iMedia and the Rastek to anyone looking at purchasing a printer of this type, although I hope they don’t sell too many more of them down here!”

** Pictured is the older model Raster H700UV. Raster was bought out by EFI and rebranded as Rastek in 2009.