Original Impressions — Marketing, Miami Style

MIAMI IS a well-known area for models, but not just the ones found on the catwalk or sunbathing by the ocean on South Beach. Commercial printers seeking to become full-service communications providers should focus on Original Impressions. For the past two decades, OI, as it is often referred to, has cultivated a reputation for partnering with its clients and supporting their marketing efforts—while becoming a model example of the commercial printer of the future.

Original Impressions, based in Miami, is a full-service, multimedia communications provider founded in 1982 as a minority-owned enterprise by President and CEO Roland Garcia, who first cut his teeth in the printing industry running a small press at the in-plant facility for Burger King Corp. (BKC).

He learned how to operate the press and started promoting printing services to all internal departments at the company. He proved the work could be done in-house with the same or with better quality.

Garcia worked his way to become a Certified Graphics Communicator, and was named president of the In-Plant Printing Management Association. Soon after, Garcia was elevated to director of graphic communications at BKC, the youngest director in the history of the company at the time. He was only 26 years old.

Starts Own Company

By 1982, Garcia had built the BKC shop into the second largest in-plant in the state of Florida with 54 employees offering creative, printing and distribution services. But later that year, BKC decided to close its graphics department. So Garcia started Original Impressions with 12 employees. Twenty-four years later, Garcia’s company—now part of Nationwide Graphics—employs 154 people, with an average service time of 81⁄2 years per employee. (Garcia sold the company in 1999, and repurchased it in partnership with Nationwide in 2002.)

Though its roots are in offset printing, much of the company’s success has come from the diversity of its services. Original Impressions has evolved over the years, enabling it to develop e-business, creative, printing, mailing and fulfillment solutions to clients in a broad range of industries. It provides high-end brand development services to small- and medium-size companies, as well as cost-effective graphic solutions for large corporations.