EFI Partnership Fosters Growth at Indy Imaging

Asked to describe his company, Indy Imaging, to people not familiar with it, president and owner Robbie Gordon begins with a surprising statement.

“We don’t exist,” he explains. “Hopefully you’ve never heard of us.” As a wide-format trade printing operation, he says, Indianapolis-based Indy Imaging serves as a silent partner for commercial print shops, event producers, and other high-end clients seeking to claim the glory of a job well done for themselves.

Gordon says Indy Imaging, which produces applications for retail environments, events, stadiums, and commercial spaces, is contacted by its customers for capacity, capability, or both. “Sometimes they don’t have the capability and we do,” he shares. “Other times they have the same machine we have. They just don’t have four of them.”

While Gordon sees Indy Imaging as a silent partner for its customers, he is not at all silent about the ways EFI printing technologies have helped grow and transform his business.

Since his first EFI purchase in 2006, Gordon has come to rely on the company as a key technology partner, enabling him to meet deadlines regardless of production volumes or unexpected downtime.

“For us, service is everything,” he says. “If a customer says they need something in a certain timeframe, we have no choice but to deliver it.”

For Indy Imaging, reliability matters.

A Twenty-year Partnership

Indy Imaging’s now 20-year partnership with EFI began with the purchase of one of its early VUTEk hybrid flatbed/roll-fed printers. Gordon notes how, over the years, wide-format inkjet technology has improved. “Those were the early days of flatbeds,” he recalls. “You almost had to be an engineer to make the machine work.”

As the technology became increasingly capable and productive, so too did Indy Imaging’s reliance on EFI’s ever-developing equipment portfolio.

Gordon estimates that, since that first investment in 2006, his company has owned 25 EFI systems across both hybrid, roll-to-roll, and textile platforms. He sees the partnership as an ongoing evolution, driven by consistency. “Our staff already understands the platform, the color management, and the workflow,” he says, which enables the company to easily add equipment, reduce training time, and focus on production.

Riding the Rise of Fabric Printing

The rapid rise of fabric printing has brought strong transformation to Indy Imaging. Today, it accounts for about 30% of its total production volume.

This is a dramatic change. A decade ago, textile printing represented much less of the company’s output. “Ten years ago, we were at 10%,” he says. “Now it’s replaced entire segments of the business.”

As billboard work declined, event and retail graphics became more prominent. Gordon shares that, for his company, part of the growth in textile printing has been driven by how customers perceive the finished product. “When people see a vinyl banner next to a fabric banner, they immediately say, ‘I don’t want vinyl anymore.’”

To serve the needs of its voluminous textile production, Indy Imaging currently runs three dye-sublimation printers: an EFI VUTEk FabriVU 340 printer, an EFI Reggiani PRO 340 printer, and an EFI Reggiani COLORS 340 printer. The Reggiani units were acquired to strongly increase capacity. Each Reggiani unit, he says, “is an industrial machine designed for a lot of production.” One, he shares, is running strong after ten years of heavy production – a strong testament to the machine’s reliability.

Streamlining Graphics Production

Another EFI feature that has strongly optimized production at Indy Imaging has been the use of the EFI Ultra Clear Coat option on its fleet of four VUTEk Q5r 5.2-meter roll-to-roll LED printers. Before installing this feature, he says, the company used either film or liquid lamination to protect the surface of the print. Problematically, liquid lamination, he reports, had a failure rate of about 20%.

EFI’s UltraClear Coat installed on Indy Imaging’s VUTEk Q5r printers prints inline, simultaneously with the image, and can be used for decorative, high-quality effects on prints or as a final coating to help protect graphics.

Today, because of Ultra Clear Coat, coating is done in conjunction with printing, and the company can easily specify matte or semi-gloss finishes. “It takes care of it for you,” Gordon says.

According to Gordon, Ultra Clear Coat enabled the company to eliminate its lamination department and decommission its lamination equipment. “We had four liquid laminators that we got rid of,” he shares. “It’s pretty awesome.”

The EFI Advantage

To meet the needs of its customers and to build his business, Gordon relies on EFI for equipment, for service, and for going the extra mile to help him meet his goals.

He recounts that a team of EFI engineers worked directly with his company to develop custom print modes for specialty products requiring specific ink layering.

“That’s unusual for a company that size,” he says. “They wanted to understand why it was an application and then helped us build it.”

For a high-production environment like Indy Imaging, reliable service becomes paramount. EFI has worked with the company to ensure its nine EFI presses keep running over its two daily shifts through a mix of technician visits, training on self-administered maintenance, and anticipated parts replacement before problems can occur.

Looking forward, Gordon says he isn’t seeking explosive expansion for his company. He is instead focusing on refinement: improving efficiency, maintaining reliability, and continuing to meet customer expectations. “We want to keep delivering what our customers ask for, on time, exactly how they want it.”

When you think about it, that commitment — to deliver what customers ask for — is perhaps the element that has strengthened and prolonged the technology partnership between EFI and Indy Imaging. Over the past two decades, EFI’s printing technology has fostered the growth of the company, scaling with it, expanding its capabilities, and giving the company what it needs to succeed.

About that need, Gordon says, “If you're in an industrial environment like ours, you need the bigger machines, you need the robustness, you need speed when you need speed — and when you need to make something small, you're able to slow the machines down and get the quality to match your customer's expectations.

For Indy Imaging, the EFI advantage is more than just one thing. It’s instead a combination of operational consistency, industrial-grade throughput, and a partnership that keeps this “silent partner” running strong.

To learn more about EFI, visit efi.com.