Big Job: Jim Larkin, owner of Graphic Innovations, a large-format printer in Providence, shows off one of his latest projects: wrapping a car for promotions by a local radio station.
COMPANY PROFILE
Graphic Innovations
Owner: Jim Larkin
Type of Business: Large-format
color printer
Location: 67 Cedar St., Providence
Employees: 6
Year Founded: 1996
Annual revenue: WND
Printer uses high-tech gear to make larger-than-life posters, murals, car wraps
If you can dream it up, Jim Larkin says, Graphic Innovations can do it: as big as you want it, in full color, as a poster, banner, trade show booth, mural or back-lit display. The Providence printing company’s motto is “any image, any size, any place,” and Larkin means it.
“We can wrap a building,” he said. “We can wrap a fleet of trucks.”
Before opening his business, Larkin worked at traditional printing companies in Rhode Island. The early 1990s brought the digital age to the industry, and Larkin saw its potential.
“It was the new way to print,” he said. “I wanted to take a leap at it and try it myself.”
When Larkin opened Graphic Innovations in 1996, there were already other companies doing digital printing, but none focused specifically on large-format color projects. He started out in a 600-square-foot space on Dorrance Street, with two employees and a couple of machines.
Without a visible storefront at first, “no one really knew we were there,” Larkin said. He spent the first year drumming up business, largely through referrals from advertising agencies and designers in the area. A Web site, mailers and light advertising followed, but Larkin’s budget didn’t allow him to do more than “just hustle.”
“You try to be the best at what you do, and everything follows from there,” he said. “Especially the way word-of-mouth works in Rhode Island. If you’re bad, everyone knows it, and if you’re good, everyone knows it.”
And Larkin didn’t go unnoticed: As his company outgrew its tiny space, he relocated to a three-floor building on Ship Street. Larkin and his team proceeded to wrap a whole corner of the building in graphics, making it hard to miss.
Larkin says he has a customer base of about 500 – but he doesn’t do business with all at once. For example, an auto wrap typically lasts five years, so Larkin may not see that client again until their next campaign.
He does most of his business in Rhode Island. The state serves as a living portfolio for his company, with projects at the Roger Williams Park Zoo, the Dunkin’ Donuts Center, the R.I. Convention Center and the R.I. Public Transit Authority, to name a few.
“If you haven’t heard of us, you’ve probably seen us,” Larkin said.
The company also has done work in Massachusetts – banners and signs for Fenway Park and Gillette Stadium – and wrapped vehicles for clients in Florida, Las Vegas and California. It’s even produced murals for a customer in Italy.
Larkin never takes on a project that he can’t do. He said turnaround time for any job is three days, but most are finished in two. Larkin’s never missed a deadline – that’s part of how he sets himself apart.
“Once promised, that’s it,” he said. “Even if there’s a power outage – we’ll find a way to get the job done.” And there are usually multiple projects in the works, “but that’s what makes it fun.”
Larkin said the hardest part of staying competitive is deciding which technologies to bring in and when. “You want to make sure you do your research, and make sure the machine will do what you expect it to do.”
In 2000, he was the first in Rhode Island to install an extra-high-resolution Arizona digital press for 3M Scotchprint Graphics. He’s also recently purchased a new SEIKO color printer that’s wider and faster and prints at the highest resolution possible, Larkin said.
But he tends to hold off on buying new equipment as soon as it comes out. “There’s technology out there that is new, that we’re not looking at that right now,” he said. It’s too new, he said, and he wants to let it spread out a little, let others work out the bugs.
From the beginning, Larkin said, he envisioned growth to be slow and gradual, and he stressed that a company doesn’t have to be large to be good.
“I don’t want to be a $50 million company,” he said. “I want to be the best at what we do. I’d rather be small and in control versus the industry controlling me.”
And Larkin is in control. His success has led him to expand his company a third time. The company relocated in December to a one-floor facility on Cedar Street. The new location is ideal, Larkin said, because it enables smoother workflow, and the vehicle bay, finishing area and showroom are all in the same location. The company also upgraded all of its computers and software and installed a new network.
So far, he’s happy to report, this is the company’s best year ever.
“We’re at the top of our game right now,” he said.
Asked what he aspires to in the future, Larkin replied: “The goal right now is to do more for more people.”
