Customer: International Home Furnishings Center (IHFC) 

Production Shop: Express Graphics

Location: High Point, NC

Flight Date: Fall 2010

Project: Create graphics for the 2010 High Point, NC, Furniture Market

Express Graphics' most challenging project in 2010 was the graphics for the fall 2010 High Point, NC, Furniture Market. Twice a year, Express Graphics produces, fabricates, and installs more than 10,000 sqft of graphics for the International Home Furnishings Center (IHFC), as well as a few smaller venues, within a two week timeframe. These graphics include window graphics, wall murals, showroom displays, backlit advertising, standees, elevator wraps, carpet floor graphics, directories, way-finding signs, and routed dimensional signs. It encompasses just about everything, all wrapped into one project. IHFC is the largest showroom complex in High Point, NC, with more than three million square feet. Each April and October, more than 80,000 buyers, manufacturers, designers, and sales representatives from around the world come to see, meet, learn, and place orders for home furnishings at the High Point Market.

"We are faced with two big hurdles," said Mitch Termotto, owner, Express Graphics. "First is organizing the hundreds of digital files that we receive from a multitude of sources. We need to double check sizes, correct for color, and in many cases, make last minute changes to copy."

The files are sorted by type of job and then sent onto the print phase of the project. The graphics are printed on the company's EFI Vutek flatbed and HP Latex roll-to-roll printers. Many of these projects are then finished by hand or digitally cut on the company's CNC router.

"The second hurdle is sorting all of the graphics by type, showroom, or location and installing within a very short time frame," said Termotto. "Sometimes we don't receive files until days before they have to be installed so we are faced with very tight deadlines."