Phillips Printing — Passionate by Accident
“We told the guy in charge of the project, ‘Get the job back to us, and we’ll get it done. You just have to find some feathers.’ As it turns out, the guy snuck into his wife’s closet and stole a black feather boa. We stayed up all night, gluing feathers on the invitations,” Phillips affectionately recalls, noting, “We ended up winning a Gold Addy award for those invitations.”
Why does Phillips do these sorts of things? In his words: “Because that’s what I’d want someone to do for me.”
He’s a small business owner, who takes the extra time, even if it means working through the night, to get the job done—and get it done right. That’s how you do business when you’re small enough to know your customers intimately. That’s how you do business when your company believes in producing a quality product, made with integrity, by employees who consider themselves craftspeople.
Technologically Savvy
Being a 21st Century craftsman also means being technologically savvy. Phillips believes that’s been key. “Initially, we ran our four-color work on a single-color Heidelberg KORD purchased by my parents (who retired in 2000, when I bought their shop). Later, a two-color Omni-Adast replaced the KORD and, still later, a four-color Heidelberg Quickmaster was added.
This past summer, Phillips invested heavily in new technology, including a new four-color Heidelberg Printmaster perfector, a Screen CTP system (running Agfa Azura chemical-free plates) and a Standard Horizon bookletmaker. Phillips says the total installation, which took two weeks to complete, has doubled productivity.
“We’re experiencing incredible time savings with the new CTP system, making twice as many plates per hour. With all the automation on the new Printmaster, our setup and makereadies are significantly faster. And, because it’s a perfecting press, our output has doubled.”
Phillips Printing manufactures a mix of products, including short run, two- and four-color newsletters, postcards, brochures and product literature.
