While the Barking, Essex-based business offers a wide variety of signage products, its speciality up to now has been the production of 3D built-up letter signs for SMEs.

The new Agfa machine, which was installed this summer and supplied by iSub Digital, will enable the company to satisfy the increasing demand from its customers for flatbed printing.

Sign Architects managing director Yusuf Rab said: “Printing directly to substrates is the direction our customers are heading in. It’s the new big thing and we saw a gap in the market that we could fill.”

The business visited Sign & Digital UK at the Birmingham NEC in April to meet iSub Digital following word-of-mouth recommendation and to explore its range of Anapurna flatbeds. Rab then visited iSub’s showroom in Kettering for further research.

The 1.6m-wide Anapurna H1650i LED is a hybrid UV-LED inkjet printer with an integrated roll-to-roll system for indoor and outdoor applications. It can print directly onto aluminium composite and acrylic and can handle a maximum media thickness of 45mm.

“Since its installation the Anapurna has been getting busier and busier,” said Rab.

“We and our customers love the vibrancy of the colours, the UV element and the speed of production.

“It offers a different service to our clients and also makes our jobs easier, as it removes the numerous vinyl application steps in the print room which, in turn, improves our ability to produce jobs faster for our clients and increases our profitability.”