Banner Box in Chesterfield has two Roland printers that it uses for its textile work. The first system installed in the summer of 2004 is a SolJet™ SJ-745 running Manukian dye sublimation inks. Then in February of this year, Banner Box installed a modified SolJet™ SJ-1045 for direct to textile printing that runs Manukian dye-dispersal ink.

Banner Box was established ten years ago and in the early days was a trading division of a tarpaulin-making company. However, it has evolved into a producer of flags, banners, soft signage and since last year, set up a fine art and photographic canvas printing division – using Roland systems.

Before installing its first Roland system back in 2004, the company looked very closely at the best way possible of printing onto textiles. It quickly became clear that dye-sublimation was the way to go in terms of quality, and as a result contacted i-Sub Ltd. Until that point all the company’s flag production was outsourced but with the arrival of the Roland SJ-745, the company bought flag production in-house.  “It surprised us,” says Banner Box’s Paul Noble. “We went from zero to 100m²of production a week.”

Demand ensured the company opted for a second printer but this time the company opted for a modified Roland SJ-1045 direct to textile printer. “We really wanted to crank up the volume.“ says Noble. “With our first dye sublimation system we have superior quality and with our new direct to textile system we have speed - between our two systems we are now producing about 4-500m²per week.”

At Banner Box flag production takes up a huge chunk of production but this is joined now by a plethora of applications such as soft signage for exhibitions, back-drops, a wide variety of point-of-sale work, interiors and most recently canvas prints.  “We produce a diverse range of products and service a broad sweep of applications,” says Noble. “Although flag printing is our bread and butter work, with our second 2.6m wide Roland system we have the ability to produce much bigger graphics of an unlimited length.  This production flexibility is opening great new opportunities for the business.”