Issue link: https://nbm.uberflip.com/i/1362655
1 8 G R A P H I C S P R O S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 1 G R A P H I C S - P R O. C O M Q: WHAT'S YOUR SHOP LIKE TODAY? Ouzts: Our new shop is a 4,000-square-foot freestanding facility just off a main street. It's a big open space with the printer and laminator visible in the back. My wife, Jessica, is the first person clients see, along with our dog Kahlo. In the beginning I did just about everything myself. I still have my hand in every job, but we have hired another designer and an installer. Q: WHO ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS? Ouzts: We serve clients in the retail, industrial, restaurant, and health- care sectors, as well as large and small service industry customers. We do a lot of work for Tyson and other plants around here. We've worked with the hospital, the fire department, and city hall's planning division. We also work with nonprofits like Friendship Community Care. A lot is happening right now in Russellville. The whole downtown area is being revamped, and new companies are coming in, some of them because of the world-class mountain biking trails at Mount Nebo State Park. I'm working on a complete signage package right now for a new bike shop in town. We also have orders for window graphics and inte- rior signage as part of the downtown renovations. It happens weekly that a client wants something done that they should have gotten on a month ago. The speed of the Roland VG2 re- ally helps us out. We can leave the printer to run overnight — we just load up the inks and let it go. In addition, the new quick dry feature is a real time saver. Q: WHAT WOULD YOU CONSIDER TO BE YOUR SHOP'S SPECIALTIES? Ouzts: We do a lot of vinyl graphics — for windows, walls, floors, and vehicles. In addition to full vehicle wraps, we do a ton of partial wraps, or "door slaps," along with lettering and logos for trucks, cars, and vans. We also produce decals, yard signs for construction and solar businesses, banners, you name it. A lot of clients come to us for a full branding package. My favorite thing to work on is dimensional standoff backlit interior signage. We also do custom exterior signage. Q: HOW HAS COVID-19 AFFECTED YOUR BUSINESS? ARE YOU STARTING TO SEE A RETURN TO NORMAL? Ouzts: We were fortunate to be able to remain open as an essential business. Our employees worked from home, and my wife and I were in the shop. There were still a lot of businesses in this area that were open. Within just a few weeks we were back to being busy. Tyson Foods and other clients needed safety signage. We produced a lot of floor graphics and directional signage, as well as signs that described new ways of operating, like "Drive-through only," etc. Now things are starting to come back to almost normal. Q: WHAT LIES AHEAD FOR SIGN HUB? Ouzts: When we first started, we were selling everything from paper posters to outdoor signage. As we've grown, we've been able to nar- row down the list to what we want to do. We'll always provide high- quality vinyl graphics for our clients. There's so much versatility with vinyl, and having the VG2 makes it easy to produce vibrant designs quickly and accurately. We love being able to provide wraps and cus- tom signage solutions for our customers. There's probably a router in our future as well. GP Ouzts continued from page 17