By Melissa Donovan
The Vomela Companies began in 1947 and employs over 1,300 staff members out of 20 separate locations. Its headquarters is based in St. Paul, MN, where the staff works out of a newly built 300,00 square foot facility. The company serves customers throughout North America.
Its services include collateral and commercial, store décor, point of purchase and promotional signage, events, and transportation, which includes graphics for fleet, transit, and recreational vehicles. 70 percent of its work is considered digitally printed with the remaining 30 percent handled via lithography, screenprinting, or doming.
Its digital printer portfolio consists of 45 roll-to-roll wide format printers and 15 flatbeds spanning the 20 locations in addition to one 16-foot dye-sublimation (dye-sub) device. Some specific printers in the arsenal include the Epson SureColor S60600, EFI VUTEk GS3200, EFI VUTEk GS5000r, and the HP Inc. Latex 26500.
How the print service provider (PSP) decides what to add to its growing list of equipment is based on technology advancements, capacity, and quality. “These are chosen based on the latest technology and capacity as well as the quality of the output,” explains Teri Mascotti, director of brand marketing, Vomela.
Above: Vomela’s affiliate C2 Imaging branded the Sour Patch Kids retail store in Manhattan, NY with multiple floor graphics applications using media from 3M and its Epson SureColor S60600.
The Floor Opportunity
While only a small portion of the PSP’s core service offerings, floor graphics is an application with legs. Vomela produces five types of floor graphics—adhesive decals, three-dimensional designs, printable carpet, floor mat graphics, and stair applications.
According to a company sell sheet on the product, “floor graphics are more than just another form of branding, they offer an opportunity to make creative use of space that sticks with your audience in a less conventional way. Floor graphics can be adapted for a variety of situations, reach consumers while they shop, promote an event, display brand identity, make a trade show booth more interesting, and adorn an area with a custom carpet.”
The majority of its floor graphics work is for indoor and outdoor environments like retail, education, and events. Wide format digital printing is ideal because it allows Vomela to produce a large volume in a short amount of time. Additionally, the company’s printers are set up to handle large rolls of the required material.
Media is typically sourced from 3M Commercial Graphics. Vomela works closely with the customer to recommend a material that is scratch, scuff, and slip resistant, while maintaining a vibrant image and holding up to cleaning solutions.
Sweet then Sour
A colorful, whimsical, and delicious example of Vomela’s floor graphics work is a job it completed for the Sour Patch Kids retail store in Manhattan, NY. Sour Patch Kids partnered with candy retailer IT’SUGAR to open a new store and looked for graphics that would help create a never-before-seen experience for Sour Patch Kids fans.
Vomela’s affiliate C2 Imaging branded the entire store with an intense focus on color. It created floor graphics to lure customers into the retail establishment and once inside more floor graphics were placed around certain displays as accent pieces. White outlined graphics of Sour Patch Kids were also found on the floor throughout the store.
The company chose 3M Controltac Graphic Film IJ180, a 2-mil opaque film compatible with eco-solvent, latex, solvent, and UV printers for the project. It paired the material with a floor graphic overlaminate to ensure all of the correct anti-slip precautions were met.
Graphics were printed using the Epson SureColor S60600. The 64-inch SureColor S60600 features Epson UltraChrome GS3 four-color solvent ink. When combined with an all-new precision media feeding system and a high-performance Dual-Array PrecisionCore TFP printhead, the SureColor S60600 is capable of producing sellable quality banners at a 550 square feet per hour (sf/h), while also producing adhesive vinyl output at up to 310 sf/h per hour.
Prior to 2020, customers requesting floor graphics planned to use the printed material mainly in retail spaces similar to the Sour Patch Kids project, however COVID-19 impacted the Vomela’s retail and events business.
Luckily, floor graphics are ideal for other environments. “We have seen an increase in floor graphic requests especially from companies that are bringing back workers to offices. Also, in schools in an effort to maintain and enforce social distancing,” cites Mascotti.
Continued Focus
Vomela leverages its expertise to target its most recent requests, masks and personal protection equipment. Floor graphics are a small portion of its service offerings, however the company is committed to providing the best solution possible—whether the final graphic is placed in a retail store or school.
Vomela is capable of doing this thanks to its large arsenal of wide format printing equipment in addition to an impressive network of print providers operating under its umbrella.
Dec2020, Digital Output
