You won’t find them written up in the pages of Forbes or Bloomberg Businessweek, but when you turn to hometown media, there they are: small to medium-sized printing businesses making progress, profits, and headlines in their own right. They’re the signs of life that the industry is full of as it responds to change and new opportunities in the graphic communications marketplace. Here are some attention-worthy stories from the last few weeks:

After nearly 125 years in North Adams, MA, Excelsior Printing has moved its production operations to Integrity Graphics in Windsor, CT. Under the deal, Excelsior Printing and SeedPrint, the company’s seed-packet printing business, will retain their names and operate as divisions of Integrity. Other parts of Excelsior will remain in Massachusetts. Besides its Windsor plant, Integrity Graphics has subsidiaries in Rhode Island. The owners of Excelsior and Integrity had met and become friends while serving on the board of directors of Printing Industries of New England (PINE). (source: iBerkshires.com)

R. Dale Ford, president of Jones Printing in Chattanooga, TN, has bought the $10 million business from its parent company, Nationwide Argosy Solutions. Ford, in charge of Jones Printing since 2009, expects to grow its volume by $5 million over the next five years. He proposes to do this by transforming the company from a traditional commercial printer into a multi-capable provider of digital printing, e-marketing, mailing, dye sublimation, packaging, fulfillment, and inventory management services. (source: Chattanooga timesfreepress.com)

In Naples, FL, Sunbelt USA Inc. has added capacity in the form of three new Konica Minolta digital presses. Owner John Conti believes that the machines will enable him to produce high-quality color printing for his customers at less cost than conventional printing. Conti acquired the 28-year old company in 2007 and now has seven employees and 500 customers in southwest Florida. (source: naplesnews.com)

Another company with sunshine in its name is expanding in South Carolina. Sun Solutions of Orangeburg announced plans to invest $10 million in a new 100,000-sq.-ft. plant in West Columbia. Construction is expected to take about a year, and the intention is to add 50 new jobs. Sun Solutions, a provider of print and other media communications services, already has a grand-format facility in West Columbia. (source: washingtontimes.com)

A Pennsylvania screen printing business started by two college friends has moved into a building with five times as much space as the location where the company was launched. Dave Maloney and Matt Trievel, owners of Axelrad Printing, say business has increased by 35% since they left Kingston for Wilkes-Barre, where they and their 16 employees now are operating out of what used to be a Hallmark warehouse. T-shirts, hoodies, sweatpants, hats, bags, and corporate apparel are among their specialties. (source: thetimes-tribune.com, Scranton)

A screen printing business in San Diego, CA, woke up and smelled the coffee—literally—for a new way to be eco-friendly as well as graphically innovative. Domestic Stencilworks has figured out how to make coffee grounds the key ingredient of the ink it uses to print T-shirts. A half gallon of used coffee grounds yields enough naturally pigmented ink to print 200 shirts. Coffee houses in the area donate the spent grounds, and the home-brewed ink, say the owners of Domestic Stencilworks, is considerably less expensive than regular screen printing ink. (source: sprudge.com)