Placentia, Calif. – Taylor Graphics, based in Irvine, CA, is the largest trade only printing facility in Orange County, California. As part of a growth strategy that began two years ago, Dean Taylor, President of Taylor Graphics, has expanded the services traditionally provided by trade printers by investing in technology that caters to the unique needs of design agencies and brokers that service the packaging and pharmaceutical markets.

“We are an ISO certified company with a razor focus on providing print services for the trade,” states Dean Taylor, President of Taylor Graphics. “As such, when we put something in a box and ship it out, nine out of 10 times, our customers don't see it. We're shipping directly to a fulfillment house, or to the end user, the customer of my client. So, for Taylor Graphics and for the design agencies and brokers we work with, we need the absolute assurance that what's going in that box looks perfect from sheet one to sheet 10,000, and that they all look the same.”

The path of Taylor Graphics is similar to what many trade shops have experienced. While they provided a lot of the typical commercial print services for agencies and brokers, they noticed that certain packaging jobs for cosmetic companies and pharmaceuticals were being done somewhere else. Since they already had the ability to die-cut and glue, Taylor took the first step of their growth strategy by investing in an offset press that could produce high quality packaging on thicker stocks.

“In 2017 we bought our first RMGT press,” states Taylor. “We went with that press for a couple of reasons. One reason was we always had Mitsubishi presses, and they have treated us very well as far as print quality and durability. We did our due diligence and looked at all the press manufacturers. We are thrilled that we chose the RMGT 926 six-color LED-UV press. This was our first venture into UV offset printing. Investing in LED-UV technology allowed us to run on different substrates, we can print on foil board, we can print on plastics, and vinyls. This really open up the door for us to widen our gamut of printing to all of our customers.”

The next stage of their growth strategy had to do with quality control. As an ISO compliant company, they were doing work for medical device companies. The books that they printed had to have zero defects. Initially, this involved a very labor-intensive process of inspecting books after they were all produced.

“The second offset press we purchased from RMGT was equipped with a DAK camera system,” states Taylor. “It actually takes a picture of every sheet and compares it to the proof. The system detects whether the density of color is off, it will pick up if any text is broken or missing. If we had a smashed blanket or any hickies, the DAK system can identify anything that's different than the original proof. Every sheet going through the press gets a number inkjet sprayed on it. When a press run is done, we have a report that shows every number on the sheet that was rejected. In finishing, we can pull out those sheets before it ever hits a folder or any other piece of equipment. That has eliminated the need for inspection after everything's done. We know before it goes to a cutter or a folder that everything's perfect.”

“So I tell all of our customers that I can print from a business card to a billboard with all the equipment we have in house, from press to wide format to digital to all of our binding equipment. I can make sure that we get it done in time on time and everything looks great.”

“The partnership that we've developed over the past few years with Taylor Graphics has been something I'm extremely proud of,” states Kian Hemmen, Director of Sales, Print & Finishing Solutions, the RMGT distributor for the region. “Watching Taylor Graphics grow from the shop they were seven years ago to what they are today is just exciting. Dean Taylor is a great partner of Print & Finishing Solutions and has become a great friend of mine. I look forward to his success with the two RMGT presses and can't wait for a third one to be installed.”