Working with Exhibition Hub, we recently completed this fast turnaround project branding the Boiler House on Brick Lane, Shoreditch for the new Art of the Brick exhibition.
Citiprint were asked to rebrand all the external panels on a tight turnaround and with limited street access.
The exhibition is now open and you can book here.
Towards the end of 2022 Citiprint completed a roll out of rebranding to InstaVolt’s EV Charger network. We were approached to carry out the work by the Marketing Manager at InstaVolt to assist in completing work across 130 locations as part of their sponsorship deal with E.ON Energy.
InstaVolt’s leading charger network covers a vast area in the UK with our work alone covering some 2000 miles, from Newquay and Bournemoth, as far north as Liverpool and Keswick.
We were chosen for our ability to replace vinyl graphics on the chargers on site without third party involvement and our 24/7 nature. Work was carried out at all hours by an installer of ours who was able to complete the work in just under five days with zero downtime or interruption to InstaVolt’s customers looking to utilise the chargers.
The work further worked to highlight our skill and experience when it comes to large scale national roll out work, with a very similar project being completed in 2021 for JustEat in which over 500 restaurants were rebranded within a week with new POS and hard signage.
Our work for InstaVolt is expected to continue with similar future projects and we are proud to have been able to accomplish this large project successfully.
Recently moving to their new colossal HQ is one task in itself, but ensuring signage is installed as soon as possible and in tricky conditions is of a comparable nature.
We were recently asked by Pleavin Power to design, fabricate and install illuminated built up lettering on each side of their new 32,000 sqft premises. It was clear from the outset that local suppliers to Pleavin wouldn’t or couldn’t fulfill the job, both in terms of design and installation. We knew it was possible and came up with accurate 3D renderings and mockups which allowed both us and the client to gauge how best to approach the materials and backlit elements of the signs.
The installation proved tricky with challenging winds, weather and terrain but making use of our skilled IPAF accredited installers meant the job was possible. All signage was installed at a height of approx 9m with internal wiring completed on site the same day. With the halo lettering, each letter projects lighting onto the building’s cladding, creating a silhouette logo at night visible from all sides of the industrial estate and main road.
Each sign spans over 5m wide and is made of three seperate components with a mix of flat ACM, stand-off lettering and the built up logo. Each sign is wired internally into existing power points and set to illuminate in conjunction with dusk-til-dawn floodlight sensors. The results bring huge attention to the building during day and night and give Pleavin Power’s new home the branding it deserves.
Whilst we’re not a local sign supplier to Pleavin, our nationwide capability put as at the forefront of the options available, with our team spending three days on site in total working around other contractors during the warehouse fitout and safely completing the install in time.
Interested in this project? You can find more information on our installation services here.
Zapp deliver groceries in minutes, we print and deliver signage in hours… so you could say the two of us have something in common.
We were approached by Zapp to provide internal branding to their new West London hub, specifically to the outer walls of a newly constructed cold room. Knowing warehouse environments are typically cold and high traffic areas, we opted for Metamark MD5-H High Tack Vinyl, to provide a strong and high quality result.
The overall sign, measuring it at 2.5 x 7m is hugely visually striking and visible from outside the unit with the shutters open, providing additional impact to those on site. The comments from our client on site in relation to the vibrancy and depth of colours just highlight the power of our Epson SureColour range of wide format printers.
Material choice here was the most important factor with the wall also being recently painted – with MD5-H eliminating the need for primer, speeding up installation to just under an hour. Matt lamination to the graphics adds a large degree of durability to what should be in place for years to come.
It was five years in January since we officially committed to the premise of producing and delivering Same Day Printing across London, with a further 6 months of planning prior. Since those early days with a few rented desks in an office, we’ve continued to grow massively year on year, expanding our operations, bringing in new machinery and talent and continuing to push further ahead at the forefront of this ever growing industry.
The Print market in the UK is now worth an estimated £14bn, with that figure expected to fluxuate hugely in the coming twelve months as COVID affected firms unfortunately come and go. It remains unclear how many firms are now solely reliant on furlough whilst the market is quieter. Those who have seen a huge increase in turnover from social distancing signage and graphics may have invested heavily in new kit on the up and now face a harsh sales slump as the demand drops off. It has been imperative to us to survive the last year’s lockdown measures and market downturn, with the wait for the event and exhibitions industry to reopen almost tantalising.
But… (and I know we shouldn’t start a sentence with But but this isn’t all doom and gloom) – in the words of Sir Elton John, we’re still standing – writing this from our unit just outside of London, something we’ve been repeatedly reminded of during COVID as scam and outsourcing firms continue to crop up with no tangible bricks and mortar element. The first thing we’ve learnt is how key having premises has been to us. Whilst we’ve explored several options for moving to larger units recently, our focus has been shifted to doing the best with what we have and extracting the full potential first. We originally moved to Tilbury to provide quick and easy links to the Excel, O2 and City of London with deliveries now covering any address in London and further afield more recently. The key learning curve here has been maximising our workflow’s efficiency to enable delivery times to remain consistent with typical journey time 45 minutes.
It wouldn’t be 2021 without the huge push for sustainability and the rise of the EV, something we’ve been looking into since day one, keen on introducing zero emissions into our delivery infrastructure. Downtime last Summer enabled us to research and trial the all electric Renault Kangoo, capable of carrying around 70% of the jobs we produce. However, we found the range of these vehicles is still limiting for multi drop deliveries where vehicles can often go from East to West and back again in order to fulfill deliveries in order of urgency. The charging infrastructure within London is still somewhat limited – so does the cost of a vehicle being parked for several hours charging outweigh the savings? We’re continuing to trial new additions to the EV market this year including those from Arrival and Volta to hopefully find the perfect match for our first of many zero emissions vehicles.
Whilst the world’s manufacturing has faced huge staff shortages and issues during the pandemic, the print and sign industry has been relatively unscathed on the whole, however material shortages are starting to occur in some key areas, with many suppliers closing branches and locations and even the bulk hoarding of materials by those in the trade, namely floor graphics. This has inevitably led to inferior and unsafe floor graphics being slapped onto shop floors across the nation, with the sellotape now holding them down reminding us in the professional game how there will always be a cheaper way out for a quick buck. We’ve proudly stuck to using R10 rated floor vinyls at a minimum for all relevant jobs including those for Car Giant, care homes and those in the retail sector.
The strong position we hold as London’s only 24/7 Print and Sign company has continued to garner trust from our influx of new clients recently – with the key issue being the arrival and increase of middle men. Whilst there’s no issues in reselling or marking up in this industry, the problem comes when jobs are taken on without a supplier to turn to, hoping to find someone to squeeze on cost to maximise margins whilst never seeing or touching the final product. We are often called to fulfill orders for these jobs, and often called a short while later by the end user themselves who has paid for a product to one of these printers who has since gone silent. It falls to us to actually print and deliver, something we’re proud to have done in house now for over 1500 days. You can read more about the equipment we’re currently using here and how it enables us to deliver so quickly on Same Day Vinyl, Foamex, Signs and Banners.
And lastly, as an industry, we’ve proved we are tightknit after all. What is typically a cutthroat industry for many has been all but transformed by the new trade partnerships many have forged as they look to downsize, sell up or refocus their energy. We have seen a massive increase in trade customers with many utilising our flatbed UV printing service, powered by swissQprint.
We know it’s inevitable some names won’t reopen, a lot have made the difficult decision to close already. But come rain or shine, we’re still open all the time. In the past week alone, we’ve been through a pallet of roller banners, delivered to several film sets where others failed to deliver, and worked on Team GB’s fitting out at the NEC.
So let me tell you this printers and signmakers – it’s not long now until we’re fighting for parking spaces at exhibitions, borrowing each other’s tools and selling material to one another again. The end is in sight, and the new beginning for many is on the horizon. But for us, we’ve always been here, always will be.
Fast turnaround on a batch of mugs for Age UK required for filming on Channel 4.
Feedback from Age UK: “They went down a storm thanks so much!”
Our client needed a long term yet easily removable solution for their treatment rooms. Lasers being used in hair removal would reflect off the mirrors fitted to the walls in these rooms. The recommended solution by Citiprint was to wrap all the mirror elements in matt laminated digitally printed wide format graphics.
The large graphic is 2 x 2m.
“It looked great and the client loved it! Thanks again for the quick turnaround”
Great feedback from our client on these Same Day Vinyl Cut Graphics delivered to London direct to client.
Our agency client got in touch at midnight seeking four large foamex panels printing ready for use as a vending machine for a pop up display in London’s Waterloo Station for Motorama.
Our Epson SureColour printers churned out the job in under an hour with the graphics then being laminated and applied to foamex before delivery direct by us to site and what a result, take a look below.
