Holdall & Co - Adding Colour to Leather
Adding Colour to Leather with LED UV Printing
THE CHALLENGE
To add colour and improve production times using LED UV print technology for creative personalised leather goods.
Product in user story: XpertJet 461UF LED UV printer
Holdall & Co based in Northamptonshire, UK is a small family business which specialises in the design and manufacture of high quality leather goods and gifts. Run from their workshop and using locally sourced leather, Holdall & Co have established an enviable reputation for creativity and personalisation using a combination of embossing and LED UV printing.
Owner, Raimonda Navickaite started the business in 2012 with her partner, designing high quality leather goods using traditional materials and craftsmanship, and working with some of the last remaining case makers in England.
Personalisation has always been key to the business, with embossed monograms and engraved patterns being available from early on. When customers started asking for colour and complex artwork, Raimonda found the solution in the Mutoh XpertJet 461UF LED UV printer with flexible ink. For job creation, Holdall & Co is using Mutoh's Digital Factory UV RIP software, developed in partnership with CADLink.
As a family business, with their two young children often in the studio, having a machine that is safe, low-maintenance, clean and odour-free was important. Their initial foray into UV printing with a low-cost imported printer was the polar opposite, with continual ink spills, over an hour of setup and clean down each day, constant faults, ink blockages, and a dangerously exposed print bed; they’d quickly become disillusioned and frustrated with the whole process.
Seeing an XpertJet 461UF for the first time was “love at first sight,” as Raimonda remembers, with its fully enclosed print bed, clean and easy-to-change ink system, five minutes clean down, and incredible MTBF. The XpertJet 461UF continually cycles ink through its lines, ensuring there’s never an ink blockage and that it’s ready to print - further, there’s no manual ink refilling from bottles into funnels, no mess and no risk of spills or odours, as ink is sealed in cartridges or bags, and changed out safely in seconds. When any routine maintenance needs doing, the printer notifies the user with its onboard display and multi-colour status light, and guides them through the process. “The printer is just effortless, letting us instead focus our time on being creative and not on printer caretaking,” adds Raimonda.
Adding the XpertJet 461UF LED UV printer to the business, has allowed the Company access to new opportunities and just as importantly, the freedom to be more creative. Not only are they now able to create branded goods for businesses, but they are now able to add an extra dimension of personalisation and creativity to goods produced for bespoke customers. The Company’s range of small, handmade items are certainly eye-catching and more so with the addition of colour – leather cable ties, bracelets, coasters, luggage tags, phone charger stickers and napkin rings are among the more unusual items.
Raimonda says, ’I’m a very creative person and although we were able to add a huge amount of my own creativity with embossing, adding colour LED UV printing in to the mix is not only very exciting, but I can now reach new markets and new opportunities that I couldn’t before. We can also improve on our production times – whilst offering many, many more personalisation options and finishes! We’ve not owned the printer long so we’re excited about experimenting and learning what more we can do with it. And the fact that the printer uses flexible ink opens up very interesting possibilities!’
Holdall & Co can be found at www.holdallandco.com or on Instagram (@holdallandco).
