Wallpaper and plywood printing offer a pandemic boom for GENR8 Printing

The heartland of Newcastle’s GENR8 Printing has traditionally been in the entertainment sector. So, when COVID-19 hit, quick and creative thinking was needed.

GENR8 Printing was first established to produce the printed materials needed to support its sister company, GENR8 Entertainment, which provides marketing, venue and talent management services for the Newcastle region of NSW.

When COVID-19 hit and venues across the state were required to close in March, GENR8 Printing owner Yianni Moratidis and his business partner Bernie Ayrton, like many printers, suffered a sudden and dramatic drop in work. While the small and large format digital printing specialist had a vision to diversify its business since launching in late-2018, this plan now had to quickly become reality.

Fortunately, the pandemic coincided with GENR8 Printing’s installation of a new HP R1000 wide format printer, which was chosen to complement the business’ existing roll-to-roll HP Latex 365.

With demand for many of GENR8 Printing’s traditional jobs, including menus, posters, and business cards, slowing, the business turned to a range of substrates to boost orders. According to Moratidis, the HP R1000 has delivered a direct-to-substrate product that not only meets his customers’ needs. The technology has buoyed GENR8 Printing by enabling the business to offer a higher volume and quality of products across a wide range of rigid substrates, such as corflute, foam board, MDF, plywood, acrylic and vinyl.

In one instance, GENR8 Printing ran a plywood signage campaign for a local restaurant. When this work was shared on Instagram, the GENR8 Printing team received an influx of calls from other businesses interested in doing the same.

In addition to plywood signage, the team has witnessed growing interest in wallpaper printing as people spend more time at home and use this period to personalise their home office spaces.

“People have decided to customise the look-and-feel of their personal spaces and come to realise that wallpaper is much easier and much less messy than paint.”

The vibrant colours and white ink capabilities of the HP R1000 have impressed customers. The machine’s speed and efficiency has also allowed GENR8 to offer quicker turnaround without compromising on quality.

“Customers come to us with new ideas and often want products printed yesterday. To stay competitive, it is critical that we have the best equipment to guarantee a high volume of quality output for our clients. To top everything off, we are one of the only local printing establishments to print with white ink, and everything is printed and finished in-house.” he said.

In August, GENR8 Printing and HP hosted a webinar on ‘Pivots in print: How one local print business changed the game during COVID-19’. View the webinar to hear more from GENR8 Printing on their journey through this pandemic and the creative applications they have introduced in the midst of COVID-19.-19.

Craig Hardman, HP ANZ Country Manager for Large Format Printing, and GENR8 Printing Managing Director Yianni Moratidis will also discuss the challenges Australia’s print industry has faced in 2020, what businesses can do to succeed now and beyond the pandemic, and the latest in large format print technology helping businesses like GENR8 Printing offer entirely new, creative printing solutions for customers when they need it most.

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