KUMAMOTO , JAPAN - The city of Kumamoto has a population of 1,460,000 and is located on the southern-most island of Japan, called Kyushu. The city is known for its forests. In Kumamato, a company called mskT.COM provides a wide variety of graphic services ranging from signage and apparel graphics to printing and engraving on demand.
Mr. Masaki Tokisato, owner of mskT.COM, used to love creating decals for his own car. His family lived next door to a convenience store and he used to park his car in the store's parking lot where it attracted customers for his decals. This made him believe his ideas were marketable, and he soon started his business, mskT.COM.
"There are three universities in Kumamoto City and we are located right in the center of them," said Mr. Tokisato. "We receive many orders from groups running activities at these universities, especially during the school festival season. During the festival season we work 24 hours a day."
When mskT.COM first started, it offered only cut vinyl graphics. As orders for colored graphics increased, the staff printed the graphics on a laser printer and contour cut them using a cutting machine.
They also printed and cut using a Roland ColorCAMM printer/cutter with thermal-transfer ribbons. They initially outsourced large format orders, but as the number of these orders increased, Mr. Tokisato started looking for a new printer.
"Just as I began looking for a new large format printer, I heard that Roland had released the VersaCAMM VS-640 metallic color inkjet printer/cutter. I had known about the release of the world's first metallic silver inkjet, the XC-540MT, which interested me a lot, so I was checking the Roland website quite often," said Mr. Tokistao. "We were getting more and more orders for vehicle wraps at that time and we felt that we needed a large-format printer/cutter
to print large hood graphics with no joint lines. Then I heard about the VS-640, and I immediately thought, "This is it!"
mskT.COM also takes orders for window graphics, so the new printer had to be able to print white ink. Metallic colors are very popular with novelty-loving university students who ask mskT.COM for decals and sweatshirts with custom metallic graphics.
"We are always finding new ways to use the VS-640. We are going to try banners next. We look forward to exploring the possibilities that having metallic ink provides for our customers," Mr. Tokisato concluded.
A Roland DG Publication | Copyright © 2011 All rights reserved. 2011 | Issue No. 11 | The Roland DG Global Network