Versatia Corporative chooses the SureColor SC-S70600 & SC-S50600

With customers from the world of food and cosmetics, Versatia Corporative needs to provide a flexible, quick response for all its clients and, above all, the exceptional quality demanded by point of sale, decorating and interior design applications.

The company has achieved this with two of Epson's 64-inch SureColor printers that it has added to its central facilities in Tortosa (Tarragona).

With white and metallic inks on the one hand, and a dual printhead on the other, these two devices offer Versatia unexpected versatility, with several productivity options and a wide variety of materials to explore for high impact work.

Versatia Corporative is a young business that has been working in the graphics market for just two years, but one that has great experience thanks to the professional background of the partners who make up the company, coming from the world of digital printing, signage and graphic design.

With its headquarters in Tortosa and offices in Barcelona, Versatia offers customers a comprehensive range of service including the printing of posters, signage, outdoor advertising, packaging, 3D advertising, vehicle fleets, stand-alones, decorating, interior design and POS. Since it was founded, it has partnered with a business in Jaén that produces the majority of large format work, and now the company has two of its own 64-inch printers.

Epson spoke to Albert Favà about the purchase of the new devices. He adds a wealth of experience in digital technology to Versatia Corporative, having spent a large part of his professional career at graphics company Digidelta, in Tarragona.

How did the need to add a large format printer come about?

Primarily to give customers a quicker service. By having our production in Jaén, although we had the work within 24 hours, there were always jobs that need to be done immediately or jobs that need to be re-printed because there had been a mistake. When we're working on a project that has to be ready that night and we discover a mistake in the printing, we need to print it again there and then. That was when we decided to get a printer of our own, and in the end we bought two – an Epson 10-colour, 64-inch SureColor with white and metallic inks (SC-S70600) and another with a dual printhead (SC-S50600).

Out of everything that’s on the market, why Epson?

Having worked in the industry for many years, we already had experience of the great quality offered by Epson technology. Last October we went to Viscom in Madrid and saw Epson at the Standkolor stand. That was where we decided on this equipment. We were thinking about a 1.60 printer with high production and when we saw Epson's SureColor, it was a no-brainer. Normally, a 1.60 machine doesn't work at the speed that these machines do, and with the quality they offer as well. The possibility of having dual printheads gives us the speed we need for our everyday work and incredible quality. The machine does six-pass printing at a high enough quality for 80% of the work we do. Productivity of almost 30m² per hour in a machine like this is amazing! Before we got these machines, we calculated printing at 14-15m² per hour for the quality we need and these give us double that!

What type of materials do you print using the SureColor?

Mostly vinyl and canvas on the dual printhead printer and vinyl on the 10-colour one.

Do customers ask for advice?

Yes, the majority of customers or designers have an idea in mind, but often they don't know how to make it reality. Very few are aware of the possibilities offered by digital printing today. We show them materials and explain what we can do with our technology.

Besides vinyl, what other materials do you use?

Linen-style canvas – we print on this type of material often and it sells very well, especially for making pictures. The quality offered by Epson printers is exceptional and it's the best on the market. The colours are perfect, the greys incredible and the skin tones are reproduced with every last detail. Recently, we also did a job on vinyl for a famous brand and while we were printing we could see details of the model's skin absolutely perfectly. It was a perfect job! And we're not talking about small printing that requires razor sharpness, this was a three-metre panel for a shop.

When you do eight-pass printing in 10 colours with the SureColor, it leaves you speechless. Without going into too much detail, our facilities in Tortosa are a good example. We decorated the office with an image of Santorini applied to the wall, with its blue cupolas and the sea, it's like we have a window where you can actually see a corner of that beautiful Greek island. All our customers have been amazed by the quality of the image and hugely impressed with Epson's SureColor.

Does Versatia do interior design projects as well?

Yes, we're doing more and more work for architects. In this case, unlike brands or designers, there are lots of architects who are already familiar with the possibilities of digital printing. We've printed for private residences, hotels and offices. In addition to producing all the posters and outdoor signage for an establishment, we do all the printed interior decoration.

At the moment we're working on a hotel in Andorra that wants to personalise the walls of the bedrooms with decorative elements related to music. Besides posters and signage, for the past two years we've been specialising in interior design and window dressing. Every day we're working more and more in these areas, with customers throughout Spain and even in the south of France, thanks to our wide network of partners.

Do you always work in high quality?

No, normally in medium-quality, six passes, which is what we need for 80% of our work. And it's more than enough for us. Then we have other customers, such as a perfumery chain, for whom we do 8/10-pass printing with 10 colours and metallic inks. We print on everything, including vinyl, linen, photo paper, with incredible quality. And another thing, the lowest quality the SureColor prints is hoarding-type and this quality compared to that of the other equipment in the same production mode is like night and day. The quality is much better with these Epson printers.

Another material we've been doing a lot of work with since we got the SureColor is Duratrans, backlit – the result is perfect. And to promote our versatility and the possibilities of SureColor, we've been printing samples with metallic inks and sending them to our clients so they can see the potential for shops, window displays, interior design. And when they get them, the response is immediate!