I have always kept abreast of current technological advances in the imaging industry whether it be paper printing, signage and ID Products.
I have been in the graphics industry since 1988, the year that Lightspeed Typographics
was formed. Starting out in downtown Vancouver at the beginning of the desktop publishing revolution, we worked with a number of downtown print shops to create artwork and files ready for offset printing. It was the early days of the new imagesetting technology of creating film for offset printing. There were only a handful of imagesetters in Vancouver one of which was in New Westminster.
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I became the principle imagesetter operator and designer for a well established printing company in New Westminster. Clients at the time included BC Tel, BC Hydro and many large, medium and small businesses. I was able to increase the shops capability and we took on new challenges including producing artwork and film for screen printing, promotional product imprinting in addition to being a full service offset print shop.
In 1996 digital printing technology started to catch up and photocopiers started to be a viable option for short run print jobs, black and white or colour. I became the go-to-guy for file conversion, making obscure files work with the new generation of printers. We were able to successfully create many variable data projects merging page layout programs with database programs. Digital printers evolved and soon more and more projects were switched from traditional offset printing to digital printing. Scanners became sharper and were able to scan photographs at higher resolution and with more clarity.
It was a natural progression from sheet fed printing to add signage capability. Large format printers and vinyl cutting machines were acquired.