CIP Retail continues to innovate – combining the latest technology with old world craftsmanship. The retail design firm recently expanded its large-format printing department with a printing solution designed to deliver a significant improvement in quality, efficiency, and output potential.
The fully-loaded EFI™ VUTEk® GS3250LX is an LED-based direct to substrate/roll-to-roll printer which is ideally suited for grocery store signage of any size – from singular graphics to large rollouts. This eco-friendly printer contains no volatile organic compounds (VOCs), uses less consumables and energy, produces less waste, and has the ability to print on recycled and other materials without warping or head strikes.
Pairing the cool cure technology and high productivity features of this high performance printer with a new Kongsberg XP cutting table will improve throughput at record speed and deliver green technology to supermarket clients across the country.
The Retail Design Institute is a community of creative professionals in the retail industry. This year, CIP Retail is proud to host one of their events.
CIP Retail will be attending FMI Connect 2015 in Chicago, which takes place from June 8th to June 11th at the McCormick Place Convention Center. Please visit us at Booth #1008. We look forward to seeing you there!
Transformation
One student tossed dressing into a salad, another sliced a loaf of bread and a third was positioned at the entry to the Loveland Elementary School (LES) classroom waiting to greet some special guests with a bright hello and big hug. This was the scene at LES Thursday, March 7, as the children prepared a thank-you luncheon under the direction of special needs teacher Mary Frees.
Parents donate time and supplies to provide a room for students to take a needed sensory break…
“We are just so excited,” Frees said. “This is our first year in this classroom and it has transformed how I’m able to teach.”
The new classroom is equipped with a bathroom, a kitchen area and now – because of a donation by parents – a sensory room.
“We have the ability to do large format printing and we knew we could do this,” said Phil Huff, one of the parents being honored.
Huff and his wife, Michele, have a son in the class – 10-year-old Zac – who now, along with the other students, has a colorful, functional sensory room to take a break, recover from a stressful situation, relax and regroup and have a non-distracted area to work in. The Huffs own CIP Retail, a company that specializes in creating signage and interior décor for grocery stores. They put their business to work for LES to create the sensory room, along with Scott Carney, who designed the sign above the door.
The students thanked the parents who helped in the sensory room creation by hosting a dedication.
“This room is so important to the development of my students,” said Frees. “We simply could not have built this on our own; we are so thankful to have this level of parent support.”
CIP Retail looks forward to attending StorePoint Fresh 2018 in Orlando, FL on January 28-31.
CIP Retail designed and positioned ten (10) 20” x 20” SNS Wall™ displays in a mosaic-like pattern which pull media-rich content wirelessly, directly from Dorothy Lane Market’s Instagram feed to enhance the in-store shopping experience.
Even when our CEO Kathy Huff steps out onto the back deck of her home, she is never far from the company she and her husband Tom founded more than 45 years ago. Part of CIP Retail may be right under her foot — literally.
Kathy’s deck is made of a composite decking material that offers a long-lasting, sustainable alternative to wood. TimberTech deck boards are comprised of up to 80 percent recycled materials.
And some of these recycled materials are provided courtesy of CIP Retail as part of an innovative sustainability partnership we have with our PVC foam board supplier, Vycom.
Thanks a million
PVC foam board is one of the primary materials we use to manufacture retail store signage.
We estimate we make around 1 million signs every year used in retail store designs and supermarket designs worldwide.
Every month, we collect enough PVC scrap from our manufacturing facility to fill a 53-foot semi-trailer. This scrap would have ended up in a landfill if not for this fantastic recycling program.
In fact, since the start of the program, we’ve reduced our dumpster hauls by 40 percent.
“We’ve wanted to be a part of a recycling program like this for several years, but most manufacturers would only recycle unprinted material. That made it difficult for us to participate since almost all the PVC we use has been printed on,” says Jeff Miller, director of purchasing.
But it was a no-brainer to join the program when printed materials also were accepted.
Aware of the world
One of our core values at CIP Retail is to be “Aware of the World.”
What we mean by this is that we need to utilize the most eco-friendly materials and processes to minimize our footprint and conserve our natural resources. Participating in this recycling program is one way we stay true to that core value.
Our employees at CIP Retail are responsible for collecting and loading the PVC scraps for recycling. There are Gaylords – 4ft. X 4ft. boxes – and pallets at every workstation where PVC foam board is printed and routed.
The small scraps are tossed into the Gaylords. The larger chunks and skeletons are placed on the pallets, banded up, and shrink-wrapped for transport.
Once our team has filled about 20 Gaylords and a couple of pallets, it is time for the materials to head out for their chance at a new life. It takes our team about an hour to load up the semi-truck.
“It gives us such a sense of pride to know we are doing the right thing. It’s so much better to see all of that material leaving our facility in a semi-truck rather than an open-top dumpster container,” says Jeff.
The theme of this year’s Earth Day is Restore Our Earth.
“As the world returns to normal, we can’t go back to business-as-usual,” says EarthDay.org, the official organizer of Earth Day on April 22.
At CIP Retail, we will do our part. We will continue to work with partners who share our value of maintaining sustainable business practices and responsibly using our resources.
You can learn more about the Vycom PVC Recycling program on their website.
If you’d like to learn more about working with CIP Retail for retail design consulting and manufacturing services, please contact us.
CIP Retail will be premiering SNS Wall at Shop Talk 2018 Las Vegas, March 18th to March 21st. Come by and visit us at Booth SR3 and see how we are taking online marketing into off line retail and enhancing the in-store shopping experience. See you there!
The James is short for The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute.
Yes, it’s a mouthful, and yes, The James has a mighty mission – combining patient care, education, and groundbreaking research to create a cancer-free world.
The James is the only cancer program in the U.S. that features a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center aligned with a nationally ranked academic medical center and a freestanding cancer hospital on the campus of one of the nation’s largest public universities.
CIP Retail founders Tom and Kathy Huff are proud of their endowment to The James to support its mission and proud to be associated with such a prestigious organization.
We encourage others to learn more about the work of this incredible community resource. The Buckeye Cruise for Cancer, June 16-20, 2021, is just one of the many unique events supporters can get involved with. In the last 13 years, the Buckeye Cruise has raised over $25 million.
Specializing in creating permanent and semi-permanent retail store signage and décor means that Matthew Valerius, Creative Director at CIP Retail, is particularly mindful of the role scale and proportion play in design. If not executed correctly in his business, what a designer envisioned as a transportive retail backdrop could end up making shoppers feel out of sorts.
1. How long have you been with CIP Retail?
Matthew: I started designing here in 2013, so eight and a half years. I now manage a team of half a dozen designers. Some projects we create from start to finish, and others come from third-party design firms. Regardless, we touch every project in some way, shape, or form. Whether it is our design or an outside firm, we are responsible for executing the design intent and ensure each project is correctly translated from paper to production.
2. What is a transportive design?
Matthew: A transportive design makes you feel like you are someplace else. This is common in theme parks and theater set design, and it’s also important in supermarket store design to create an “experience” that draws customers in and invites them to stay awhile.
3. What are scale and proportion, and why are they so important in creating a transportive design?
Matthew: Scale and proportion are both design elements that have to do with size. With scale, I’m thinking about how an object designed on paper will look when manufactured into a two-dimensional or three-dimensional piece. For example, if a design plan calls for a simulated wood background, but the wood grains are drawn too large, it will look cartoonish when printed.
Proportion has to do with how an element is going to relate to other features in a space. For example, in a retail store, there are many different shapes, colors, textures, architecture, signage, fixtures, etc., competing for space. Therefore, it’s important to consider how each element will interact with the features around it.
4. What’s a common issue you see when taking a design from initial concept to final production?
Matthew: The most common issue has to do with material choices. We have the luxury of working alongside CIP’s production and manufacturing teams bringing designs to life. As a result, we are very aware of the yield of materials and the cost of materials when creating permanent and semi-permanent retail décor.
We may review design plans that call for genuine wood planking on walls 10 feet or more above the shoppers’ heads. It’s a beautiful look, but the choice of materials is often overkill. Instead, we might recommend printing a faux wood background on a vinyl wallcovering or a rigid PVC substrate to exude the same look and feel for a fraction of the price. When the material is that high above a shopper’s head it is much harder to discern real material from faux.
5. What’s an example of a décor package you’ve designed that you’ve been proud of?
Matthew: We redesigned the interior décor at Strack & Van Til food market in St. John, Indiana. I think this project is a good example of what we do well at CIP Retail. We changed the store’s look radically and affected significant changes to the space, but we did it with a light touch. A clean, edited décor package made the area feel much lighter, more inviting, and friendly. We also used a lot of faux wood grain and stone features that looked beautiful, will last for years but are easy to install, and much less expensive to manufacture.
