Atul Commodities
Where innovations transpire
Parag Boghani
|
Sharp Sign—a media range made
for exclusive creation of innovative
signage and display items for an
extensive array of applications, covering
both indoor and outdoor arenas, is a brand
identity of the signage division of Atul
Commodities, one of the leading importers
of office automation and signage products
in Kolkata. The company’s products are
selected after undergoing a long R&D
process, which eventually makes every single
piece proficient or dexterous when it comes
to quality. “All in all, we are not the kind
of material supplier people normally expect
to be, selling just flex materials; our focus
is a bit diverted from printing medias; we
are more into providing complete display
solutions,” mentions Parag Boghani of Atul
Commodities (P) Ltd.
‘Complete signage solution’ is what it defines
the signage materials Atul Commodities
caters through its convertors based around
major cities and towns across the
country, such as New Delhi, Mumbai
and Chennai. High-end LED
panels, aluminium profiles, non-lit
boards, which are required to bring
innovation to a display system, are
the products listed in the company’s
portfolio. These products available
under Sharp Sign brand from the
company have been widely acclaimed
and the demands get spiraling
among sign makers or signage firms all over
the country. “Even our ultimate objective is
to provide a combo combining quality into
innovations,” asserts Parag.
Some of the Sharp Sign products best
ever introduced from Atul Commodities
to the sign makers of the country include:
aluminium profiles for high-end click frames,
textile frames, baguette frames, poster
frames, non-lit boards, one-side and twoside
boards, to mention a few. Constantly
updating with the latest products designed
for modular applications in office spaces,
mall corridors, corporate building interiors,
outdoor display systems, those signage
professionals moving around in pursuit of
innovations always end up their search with
Sharp Sign products. According to Parag,
some of the latest launches from their end
include: flex stands, stand-alone boxes for
front-lit and backlit display systems and
more in the categories keep pouring in.
Klassic Ad World
Literally a complete world
Faizal Rahman
|
Over the decades, around the city
of Kolkata, one thing very much
sure about a sign-making firm
known to many for exclusive router-cut
signs or display solutions is turned out to
be Klassic Ad World. It’s indeed a complete
world full of all kinds of CNC and laser
engraving technologies required to craft
signage of any kind, be it cut letters, routed
displays or simply outdoor billboards,
available under the roof of the company’s
production facility where installed six laser
engravers, two CNC routers, two cutting
plotters; and latest addition being a NEGIJet
solvent printer. The main mover behind
all these activities at Klassic Ad World is
Faizal Rahman who sees and takes things
to different ways, in his attempt to stand
out with differences amid the crowd. “My
sincere gratitude is to those who provide
me wonderful machines and services,
without them I couldn’t have gained
success that we achieve today,” says Faizal.
Six laser engravers from Mehta Cad
Cam Systems; two CNC routers and two
cutting plotters from Angel India Cad
Cam; and NEGI-Jet from NEGI
Sign Systems & Supplies—the
machine portfolio of Klassic
Ad World is one of the largest
among many sign makers in
the city. In connection to for
whom (customers) the company
has been working for years,
Faizal mentions they have been
associated with a number of
agencies based in big cities
across the country and walk-in
customers are evident throughout
the day at the company’s
reception corridor. Major works
done at the production facility
of the company are predominantly of steel
letters, laser-cut display items, and NEGIJet,
which is being adopted just three
months back, is for flex and vinyl prints.
A team of 28 long-experienced
professionals, comprising machine operators
and sign makers, is the main force behind
the overall success of Klassic Ad World.
Known widely across the country, some
of the major router-cutting jobs at the
company include works on MDF panels,
foam-boards, aluminium profiles, wood as
well as other range of jobs on varied rigid
materials, which have been catering to its
clients based all across the eastern region
that includes the remotest parts like North-
East. An update, according to Faizal, to be
brought into the current machine portfolio
of the company will be addition of a set of
eco-solvent printers soon.
Vishal Enterprise
Exclusively supplying and servicing
Hitesh Kamdar
|
Having been engaging in multiple
tasks of selling imported inks and
distributing a string of printers
from overseas countries as well as that of
indigenously manufactured Indian brands
around the eastern India’s region, Vishal
Enterprises is known to a number of PSPs
based in Kolkata. Dealing in a line of brands
of Chinese printers like K-Jet, Ultra-Jet
and so on, Vishal Enterprise is also a sole
distributor of Infiniti printers sourced from
New Delhi-based VK Enterprises. “But we
equally devote our activities to selling inks
from China,” says Hitesh Kamdar of Vishal
Enterprise. When asked about why Chinese
brands, he rightly explains that such economy
products still have room in the Indian market
as demand for high-end products is quite
limited.
The range of imported machines in
the current product portfolio of Vishal
Enterprise include printers of all kinds
and configurations, comprising UV flatbed,
textile, solvent and eco-solvent, and laser
engravers. “We don’t do the way many do in
the country—‘sell it and forget it’,” asserts
Hitesh, adding that they have a team of 12,
which include five engineers, deputed to
attend calls of their customers 24x7.
Prominent in the list of customers of Vishal
Enterprise around Kolkata include Techno
Graphics, MAM Ad, Maa Tara Enterprise and
Sreeji Prints. Over the last 15 years, under
the proprietorship of Naveen Khan, Techno
Graphics has been a popular PSP equipped
with a K-Jet printer and a laser engraver of
4x3 ft. On the other side, MAM Ad is an eight
years old in the market, serving a number of
local and corporate clients with daily print
capacity of 20,000 sq ft/day. Installed in the
production facility of the company includes
a line of Ultra-Jet (Konica 512 printheads),
E-Jet eco-solvent printer and a set of
finishing equipments.
Maa Tara Enterprise is a new but widely
admired PSP among corporate biggies ever
since its inception over the last four years in
Kolkata. The company’s production facility
is equipped with Ultra-Jet (with Konica 512
printheads), E-Jet eco-solvent, Q-Jet Plus
(with Konica 1024 printheads) and capable
to deliver 35,000 sq ft of prints per day.
Perhaps the youngest of all, Sreeji Prints is
barely a three-month-old PSP in the city and
now moving persistently forward with a Q-Jet
printer (with Konica 1024 printheads) with
production capacity of 1,900 sq ft\hr. Hitesh
observes that the signage market of Kolkata
is a home to a mix of both big and small
firms, equally enthusiastic for innovations of
all sorts.
Bengal Plastic Store
Serving to the core of cut signs
Bapan
Chakraborty
|
While many go for
multitasking,
embracing a
multitude of printing
tasks collectively
comprising flex printing,
CNC routing, laser
engraving, screen printing
and more under one roof,
Bengal Plastic Store
goes to just one direction
as this sign maker is
specialised in routercut
signs and focused
around this arena only. According to Bapan
Chakraborty, in-charge of the company’s
production facility where equipped a Mehta
LX 1325 CNC router, Bengal Plastic Store
is exclusive provider of cut sign and display
items to a number of sign makers as well
as ad agencies based around Kolkata. Such
a focused activity makes the company
concentrate only upon CNC routing.
Plastic display items, vinyl boards, ACP
signs, to mention a few, are some of the
major works done exclusively at Bengal
Plastic Store. Bapan says the overall glory
of their success is very must centered
around the Mehta LX 1325 machine.
Bengal Plastic Store is a brainchild of
SK Musi who incepted the store as an
exclusive dealer of a range of materials,
which include acrylic sheets, glass, sunpack,
sunboards, vinyl sheets, ACP and other
printing substrates supplying to sign makers/
PSPs based in the city. “After seeing the
momentum of demands for routed signs
and display items escalating among the
sign makers and some good old ad agencies
whom we closely know, we decided to
switch to CNC routing activity just a couple
of years back,” says Bapan, adding that
they look forward to further magnify the
production facility to a bigger dimension.
LED Centre
For all that illuminated
Manirul Zamadat
|
One of the promising parameters in
the current signage industry, which
everyone in any regional market is
looking forward to tapping as new business
opportunity, is doubtlessly the ‘glow sign’
sector where LEDs play vital role. This
is what Manirul Zamadat captured in his
mind while planning to open LED Centre
located in a busy corner of Central Plaza
on BB Ganguly Street in the city. “LED
has changed the entire gamut of glow sign
applications these days,” explains Manirul.
LED Centre is just another newly popped
up store around, inaugurated just around
five months back. According to Manirul,
they are now in the R&D stage and looking
ahead to expanding their business with
wider regional presence beyond Kolkata.
“As of now, we are too young to expand
your branches to other parts of the
region. Our first aim is to fulfill the
need of the signage companies based
only around Kolkata city,” he says.
Like other accessories, LEDs available
around in the current market are of
varied qualities, among which many
turn out to be so sub-standard. In this
respect, Manirul has the nose to sense
‘quality’ and maintain it in their product
portfolio.
Varied range of LEDs stocked in the
product portfolio of LED Center consists
of high-end international brands like
SAMSUNG, LG and others, which are
known for stupendous luminosity and
efficient life span. “Of course, we keep
some low-cost products or the so-called
Chinese too, but we study the swing
of market demands well,” mentions
Manirul.
Art Centre
Young one down on a new path
Naba Kumar Das
|
It has been barely a year since
the door of Art Centre opened to
delivering a versatile rage of signage
works, which attract quite a number of
corporate customers around West Bengal.
And today, the company is gaining its
popularity and looking ahead to expanding
machine portfolio as well as sign making
activities revolving around the innovations
that catch the trends in the present market.
“We are very much in a beginning stage as
we have just one printer and very limited
staff,” says Naba Kumar Das, founder of
Art Centre. He explicates that they are now
planning to go for updating their machine
portfolio to a ‘greener’ and more versatile lot
to handle different projects at varied levels.
“What we are looking at for our future is to
hook into eco-solvent printers, which will not
only provide fine quality prints but also care
about environment, particularly in concern
of vulnerability to the health of machine
operators and others mingled around,”
narrates Naba Kumar. Though the company
is popped up so new in the market just in a
matter of one year time, Naba Kumar has
been around in the advertising sector for
years as he used to run a firm dealing in
classified ads and other graphic art related
jobs. Since then he would sense the growth
trending in the large-format printing segment
of the advertising world and hence resulted
the birth of Art Centre.
So far, Art Centre has been serving for a
number of big corporate clients, namely,
Parle G, Coca-Cola, Lifebuoy, etc. Signage
projects of Art Centre are scattered all over
West Bengal, sometimes reaching down the
neighbouring regions as well and all these
activities of the company is an output of
a Lotus printer (with XAAR printhead),
now running vigorously to comply with the
increasing demands from the company’s
clients. In this, Naba Kumar is in a deep
thought to add some good eco-solvent
printers to its machine portfolio sooner than
expected.
