Although there are many poster printing services available, you would be amazed to find out how few of them are actually reliable and dependable. I have been handling short run printing for a long time, but for a very specialized market. We are not only a poster printing service, but also one that does design and distribution principally of concert posters for local bands. It is a small operation most of it is run out of my basement. Even so, we do some of the best large format printing that can be done cheaply and locally.

When one of my friends suggested to me that I should offer my poster printing services to a wider range of clients, I was surprised not by the idea, but by the fact that I hadn't thought of it earlier. I knew how the local Kinkos poster printing worked, and I knew that a lot of people didn't like to deal with them. Don't get me wrong they offer a decent poster printing service in most respects, but every once in a while, they lose or bungle orders. They do so much business, you see, that they can't possibly keep very good track of everything. There was definitely a niche market for smaller poster printing services especially among counterculture and rock 'n roll folks.

Doing silkscreen printing, however, is a tricky business. The poster printing service that I was running before had a pretty basic method. You see, doing silkscreen printing is very easy when you only use one or two colors. You can use some pretty primitive technologies and still get good results, especially if the designs that you are printing is pretty simple. Professional poster printing services, however, use much more complex gear. If I wanted to take my poster printing services to a higher level, I knew that I would have to go shop around and find some new equipment.

Making posters has always been one of my passions. I love graphic design, and poster printing services seemed like the fulfillment of my dreams. I decided that it was worth the expense and the efforts in finding some new equipment, and got right to work. It wasn't as big of a hassle as I had anticipated, and soon my poster printing services were really worthy of being recognized as a professional poster shop. I am glad that I took that step, and I thank my friend for giving me the idea.