Wide-format Printing Widens the Market

"I wanted to widen my base, but didn't want to go into direct competition with printers," he says.

Academy Blue Printing in Beachwood, OH, is one printer that provides wide-format services. President Gary Laureno notes that many print jobs can be repurposed for wide format.

"The same customers that buy printing for marketing and promoting their products and services want wide format," he says. "They want it for trade shows, presentations, large pieces for their own office. Customers say, 'Take the same digital file you printed the process-color job from and give us a 25x33˝ piece for our lobby. Change a couple of things in the file, then print 10 more. We want to send them to all of our sales offices.' It complements the commercial printing that we do."