Fine art specialist Harwood King Printmakers installed a new swissQprint Nyala 4 at the start of January to handle growing demand for high quality prints from independent artists and publishing houses.
The Newhaven, East Sussex-based firm has opted for a six-colour white, varnish and orange version of the Nyala 4 incorporating six-inch diameter roll to roll shafts. The specification allows the business to accurately handle the thicker paper stocks designed for the fine art market, said swissQprint.
The Nyala 4 is capable of printing at speeds of 206sqm/hr with nine individually configurable colour channels. Harwood King Printmakers is able to take on any format on the machine’s 3.2×2m flatbed, stated swissQprint.
With the business’s current flatbed printers not meeting demand, the team visited swissQprint’s demonstration site in Bracknell to see the Nyala 4 in action. Harwood King Printmakers’ managing director Casper Harwood-King said he was impressed by the machine’s quality, flexibility and efficiency.
Mr Harwood-King added that the option to add orange to the Nyala’s specification was ideal for the business as many of its projects require deep, rich reds moving into orange.
‘Our client base ranges from independent artists, who come to us for between five to 10 prints at a time, to big publishers asking for 2500 prints,’ he said. ‘With the Nyala we can now meet their colour demands including texture builds and spot varnish effects. These are a lot more time and cost-effective on the Nyala compared to screen printing. It’s really affordable for our customers.’
From a sustainability standpoint, Mr Harwood-King said the Nyala 4 has also solved the company’s issues of banding, vacuum holes, head strikes, cleaning and nozzle drop outs.
