Bigger better for Broomfield printing house

BROOMFIELD ? Oversized building displays featuring 10-foot human heads in four colors are just part of the everyday output for a Broomfield digital printing company.

With a $375,000 Small Business Administration loan, Sean McLaughlin founded greatBIGcolor Inc. in 1998 and bought one large format printer and one grand format printer, the latter of which is capable of printing an image up to 16 feet wide and of an unlimited length.

Beginning with five employees nearly three years ago, the company bartered a banner it had made for a case of salsa and chips from its only client. Currently, greatBIGcolor runs 80 to 100 jobs through its Broomfield production facilities across Highway 36 from Interlocken, has 14 employees on staff and more than $2 million in sales annually.

“We’re an aggressive, young company that makes friends, not clients,” McLaughlin said. “Our goal is to have long-term relationships with every one of our client friends.”

The firm’s printing range extends from posters and banners to billboards, bus, truck-trailer and building wraps produced on a variety of materials including cloth, canvas, ad vinyl and silk. Clients send digital files to greatBIGcolor, and the images are enlarged to the desired size and dots per inch (dpi). “We can also scan slides,´ said Jeff Erickson, production manager for the company.

Printing is priced by the square foot and ranges from about $200 for a 4-by-6 banner to about $6,000 for a bus wrap, both prices varying with the material and color used.

“We’ve more than tripled our clients to at least 100,´ said McLaughlin. “They are about 50 percent wholesale and 50 percent direct or retail and include advertising agencies and brokers who sell ad space.” The company provides banners and signage for the Pikes Peak International Raceway and the Denver Cherry Creek Arts Festival held the 4th of July weekend.

When it added three sales offices, greatBIGcolor went nationwide. It found carriers that handled large packages and immediately it became capable of shipping its products anywhere in the country overnight., according to Erickson.

“What sets us apart is our innovation with the grand format printer and the quality of our products,” McLaughlin said. For example, the company is committed to being a leader in three critical components of transit advertising printing: price, quality and turnaround.

Its large format and grand format printers create crisp lettering and vivid colors. GreatBIGcolor has jobs ready for installation between three and five days after it receives the artwork from the client, and its expert installers throughout the United States can handle any application. It prices its products lower than any other large format printer in the country and saves clients more than 10 percent in costs, McLaughlin said.

“Our billboards are the best in the industry,” Erickson said. “We print them at 360 dpi, and you can see them just fine from 200 yards. We also can apply graphics to anything on wheels, from a VW to a delivery truck to a truck-trailer to a fleet of truck-trailers.”

The company also prints for festivals and arenas ? dasher boards and padded outfield walls, end zones and center court marquees. It can even cover a blimp. Banners include pole pockets, hems, grommets, clear coating, pre-masking and anything else the application requires.

McLaughlin and Erickson met while working at another company, but neither started out looking for a career in graphic arts and printing. In fact, Erickson has a political science degree. “Our company name comes from the kind of printing we do and also the size (height of our staff). Everyone here is big ? Jeff is 6 feet 5 inches, I’m 6 feet 4 inches,” Erickson said.

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