By Digital Output Staff
Fracture, based in Alachua, FL, creates photographic products for home and living spaces. Its core offering is glass prints, making digital printing the “lifeblood” of its business. Customers around the world choose Fracture for its sleek, modern design and image quality. In August 2022, it celebrated the shipment of its two millionth order.
With a goal of turning customers’ personal photos into quality printed images, Fracture relied on digital printing early on in its venture. Abhi Lokesh, co-founder/CEO, Fracture, explains that the company was built on the premise of “being able to create innovative wall/photo décor from people’s digital images, so we were committed to digital printing from the beginning.”
The start of Fracture in 2009 aligned with an exciting time in this technology segment, with advancements in every step of the process—from the cameras and smartphones used to take pictures to photo editing software and the resolution and printing capabilities of digital printers.
“We were really focused on identifying a printer that could produce print quality high enough that you’d be proud/excited to display the prints in your home. For that reason, we’re always pushing the envelope and testing the limits of every printer we buy,” explains Lokesh.
The same year of its inception, Fracture purchased its first digital printer, a Mimaki USA, Inc. UJF-605 UV LED flatbed. According to Lokesh, it went with the Mimaki because it produced high quality at a high throughput on Fracture’s limited budget.|
Implementing the printer brought challenges, but nothing that wasn’t solved with a bit of education. Areas like image profiling, printheads, and color calibration presented the biggest learning curves.
As business grew, so did the need for Fracture to enhance its printing capabilities. Looking for a larger flatbed table, it turned to swissQprint.
Today it owns four swissQprint UV LED flatbed printers—three Impala 3 and one Impala 2. The portfolio allows Fracture to handle up to 1.45 million prints per year.
Thanks to Digital
Thanks to the Impala printers’ feature sets, Fracture is able to offer its customers options. For example, when ordering prints, the finish can either be glossy or matte.
The original glossy finish is considered reflective, catching light and offering the traditional shine associated with a framed photo. The matte option is a non-glare finish that greatly reduces glare.
“We’ve found that printing digital images onto glass gives them a depth and richness that you simply can’t reproduce on other substrates,” shares Lokesh.
Fracture’s business model wouldn’t exist without digital print, as the technology is what the company has found the best for generating its clients’ output while meeting its goals of modern design and high image quality. It continues to invest in the latest hardware to further its vision.
Nov2022, Digital Output
