Rainier Color Adds Press, Equipment

SEATTLE—Rainier Color has installed a new, 40˝ Komori Lithrone 640 with coater as part of a $4 million expansion that includes a complete, digital prepress department.

The six-color Lithrone features full automation with closed-loop spectral control via the Komori PDC-S (Print Density Controller Spectral). In addition to the press, Komori—through Komori Imaging Systems—provided a complete prepress department, including a CreoScitex Brisque and Lotem platesetter, imagesetter, proofers, server, workstations and related material.

"We are 100-percent digital, including the data we receive and send to our clients," states John Castaldi, co-owner of Rainier Color, along with Poul Hansen.

Included in the company's expansion was the procurement of a 25,000-square-foot facility previously utilized by aircraft giant Boeing.

Rainier Color embarked on a major expansion in 1995 with the addition of a six-color, 28˝, fully automated Komori press with tower coater. In the summer of 1999, the company decided to revamp its entire prepress and press departments, including the addition of a second Komori press.

Rainier Color opened in 1981 as a regional prepress house dedicated to offering superior color and advertising prep for large corporations and advertising agencies in the Puget Sound area. Nine years later a four-color press was added. Today, it prepares and prints highquality color materials for such national accounts as Boeing and Microsoft.