Colchester based Universal Image Systems' recent investment in a Mimaki JV5-320DS has provided them with a powerful solution for producing stunning fabric graphics for POS, exhibitions and soft signage.

With a heritage spanning almost the whole of the digital printing era, owner Austin McKinlay knows his stuff when it comes to investing in wide format hardware - boasting an enviable portfolio of printer hardware already. His commitment to ensuring the solution accurately met his company's need led to extensive testing of fabrics, inks and paper, but the end result is a cutting edge facility producing pioneering products for the retail and exhibition markets.

In his impressive premises on the outskirts of Colchester, the Mimaki JV5-320DS sits alongside an equally substantial Monti Antonio rotary calendar press and prints at up to 60sq m per hour. Capable of creating soft internal walls and dividers for shops, vast suspended fabric cylinders for exhibition halls and elaborate full building wraps, UIS lead the field in high end direct to textile and sublimated print.

"The Mimaki JV5 is a fantastic piece of kit," McKinlay told us. "It has resolved a number of issues that we had with previous printers, is extremely reliable and the print quality is unbelievable and highly consistent."

The Mimaki JV5-320DS offers 3.2m wide printing to transfer paper (for sublimating to stretchy polyester) or direct to more stable polyester fabrics, meshes and voiles at a unique combination of speed and quality. With aqueous inks and the recylable nature of polyester, fabric printing is ticking not only the creative but the environmental boxes too.

Hybrid will soon be opening their new, larger, soft signage and textile printing showroom at their head office in Crewe, Cheshire, where their full suite of textile specific machines can be seen.