Print service providers often carve out unique niches, or serve highly specific vertical markets, but Gibsonton, Fla.’s Rocken Graphics may have one of the most singular client bases in all of print: traveling carnivals. If you have ever been to the funfair when it rolls in town, you know they are mobile amusement parks that include rides, food and merchandise vendors, shooting galleries and other games, as well as various human and animal acts. They set up in one particular location for a week or two, then pull up stakes and move onto the next location. Carnival folks need graphics—very bright and vibrant graphics to attract carnival attendees—and that’s where Rocken Graphics comes in. Launched 18 years ago, founder Kenny Smith started his career in those very carnivals and discovered that necessity was the mother of invention, at least in terms of his business.

“I was in the food concession business,” said Smith. “I had six food concession trailers on the road, and my wife and I traveled. I couldn’t find anyone to make graphics and signs for us, so I bought my own plotter and software and started doing my own.” He soon learned that other carnival vendors had the same problem.  “There were several other people that couldn’t find anyone to do it for them either, so they started asking me to make them signs. Eighteen years later, the food trailers are long gone and all I do is make signs, graphics, prints, and tents.” Rocken serves traveling carnivals all over the country.

Rocken’s equipment lineup includes four Mimaki wide-format printers and a Roland SP 540, as well as two laminators, several sewing machines, and two RF welders that weld the canvas material used to construct tents. Rocken Graphics also has the distinction of having purchased SAI’s 10,000th software subscription, specifically, of Flexi, SAi’s design tool for sign and display graphics producers.