Spectrum Artcomm pumps photo-printing plans with Ricoh 751EX

The company has recently installed a Ricoh 751EX production printing press, replacing the old HP Indigo digital press. The first Ricoh 751EX installation, the first in Eastern India, was inaugurated by Tetsuya Tokano, managing director, Ricoh India.

SAPL, administered by two partners - Mridul Kotriwal and Sanjay Ojha, claims to be the first company in Eastern India to install and run a HP-Indigo digital press. “This new acquisition of Ricoh 751EX will help in turning around the digital fortunes of our company. It will enable us to compete much better in the market. I am confident of the capabilities of this press and hope that it will act as a catalyst in our future growth plans.”

“Spectrum Artcomm was established in 1998, after a friend of mine introduced me to the concept of letterpress printing. In fact, I bought an old letterpress too. It took me two good years to understand the basic,” shared Kortiwal when asked how Spectrum Artcomm begin its journey.

Spectrum, decided to opt for the Ricoh 751EX press as it felt that to gain an edge over other photobook printers they needed to add more value to the prints. “We always wanted to be a part of the photobook printing market, and at the same time, we didn’t want to opt for the entry-level printing presses that have flooded the market. Therefore, we decided to go for this machine. In addition to this, we loved the depth and photo printing quality that we could achieve on this machine,” said Kotriwal.

The company over the last 14 years has grown 20 times since its inception. “In the initial years, we were a company with a turnover of around Rs 15 lakh. Today, we have grown into a company with a turnover that is 20 times what we had then, that is Rs 3 crore.”

SAPL, which is located in South Kolkata’s Kalighat, has a four-storied office with each floor demarcated into designing, administration, executive management and digital wings. The company also owns a 1,500 sq/ft of workshop that is located few minutes away from the registered office. The company prefers to call itself as an end to end print solution provider, which handles everything right from designing to finishing. “We turnaround a large number of commercial printing including brochures, calendars, magazines, posters, wedding invitation cards, corporate stationery (including visiting cards), stickers, certificates, paper bags, note-books, newsletters, handbills, labels, POPs and a host of other products,” told Kotriwal.

In the future, the company plans to invest in a sheetfed offset along with die cutting and perfect binding machines. “There are two big hurdles in this. One, we have space constraints at our facility. Hence, we are looking for expanding the printing facility. Two, earlier we were thinking of sticking to commercial printing and bring in sheetfed offset machines. However, since the volume in commercial printing industry using offset has been showing signs of dip, we are contemplating of entering into the packaging segment. The plan will finalise only by the end of this year,” he concluded.