Jeff and Lori Kolenich are the owners of SpeedPro Imaging Cleveland West in Ohio. The Koleniches opened the studio because they were interested in revitalizing the city of Cleveland (nicknamed the “North Coast”) and helping its businesses enhance the city’s signage visually in order to positively affect the community.
The married couple has put in enormous time and effort to enhance their home city since leaving American Greetings in Cleveland back in 2011 to open their own sign shop.
In 2012, the Koleniches did all of the graphics for the Horseshoe Casino in Cleveland and, soon afterwards, became the sole provider of graphics on the West side of Cleveland. They have done work for Quicken Loans Arena (home of the Cleveland Cavaliers) and the Greater Cleveland Aquarium.
Remarkably the Koleniches had no prior experience or knowledge of sign making before transitioning into this industry, which has made their ability to produce such stunning graphics even more remarkable.
“We were fortunate to find and hire an experienced graphic designer with some large format experience and great attention to detail,” says Jeff Kolenich, noting that he has an extensive sales and marketing background, while his wife Lori specializes in operations and project management.
Jeff and Lori were at a slight disadvantage when they opened their business because the economy was at the height of the downturn, and the couple knew that their SpeedPro studio was going to need quite a bit of space.
“Many landlords were property-rich but cash-poor,” recalls Jeff. “They were very unwilling to negotiate on their lease, and the price some of these landlords wanted for their spaces was ridiculous.
“It was eleven months from the time we signed the franchise agreement until we moved into our current space.
SpeedPro Imaging Cleveland West currently has three HP Latex Printers with plans to add an EFI flatbed printer later this year. “We do a great deal of vehicle wraps, window graphics, wall graphics, and large banners,” says Jeff, “as well as tradeshow displays.”
Horseshoe Casino was planning to open right around the same time the Koleniches opened their studio. “[The casino] was looking for a local supplier,” says Jeff, “and we were ‘persistent’ in applying to be their suppliers of large format graphics.”
SpeedPro Imaging Cleveland West ended up providing the majority of the graphics for the casino’s grand opening, which also led to some very busy months right afterwards.
Horseshoe is a Caesars Casino, so the design work was primarily completed by Caesars then sent to the Koleniches. For the grand opening, the shop printed and installed wall murals, parking garage window graphics, window graphics on the majority of the outside windows of the Casino, wall murals inside the casino, and some directional signage.
They used mostly 3M™ Controltac™ IJ180-10 vinyl and 3M™ Scotchcal™ Gloss Overlaminate 8518 throughout. “We used 50/50 Solvex window perf on some of the parking garage windows,” says Jeff.
One installer was able to handle installing all of the graphics himself for the grand opening; however to put up the window graphics for the parking garage, he did need to use a boom lift.
For a 37-by-75-foot wall mural on brick, the shop used 3M textured surface wall graphic vinyl for it. “We used two boom lifts and five installers to complete that project,” says Jeff.
SpeedPro Imaging Cleveland West still spends a lot of time working hand-in-hand with the casino. In fact, they’re currently working on rebranding efforts for it, as its now called JACK Cleveland Casino (part of JACK Entertainment and Rock Gaming LLC).
“They like using a local vendor who can help troubleshoot how best to handle a project,” says Jeff. “They were also pleased with our customer service, the quality of our print and installation work, and our eagerness to follow up with them.”
As mentioned earlier, their involvement in enhancing the “North Coast” city has led to them also doing work for the Greater Cleveland Aquarium.
They began this relationship by dropping off an “aquarium-themed” sample kit to the managing director. They followed that up with several phone calls before finally snaring a meeting.
“That meeting led to some small projects initially, and once they got to know us and saw our commitment to quality and customer service, we became partners on several large scale exhibits and projects—from design and layout to printing and installation,” says Jeff, noting that they’ve done a variety of wall murals, window graphics, and die-cut images and even wrapped the stall doors on the visitor restrooms.
Recently the shop produced and installed a large amount of environmental graphics for the aquarium’s interactive Sea Monster Exhibit. The Kraken sea monster featured on the exhibit’s large wall was actually designed by Danielle Ladovich, graphic designer and production manager at SpeedPro Imaging Cleveland West. “They asked that the Kraken be unique,” says Danielle, “and not just any sea monster.”
Aquarium officials initially wanted to use the sea beast featured in Kraken Rum branding on their 12-by-36-foot wall, but they couldn’t secure the rights nor did it seem to mesh well with what is a kid-friendly exhibit.
Using one-inch equals one-foot measurements, Danielle drew an original 12-by-36-inch pencil sketch of a Kraken onto illustration board, which the aquarium team loved. However since this sketch was not on paper, this made scanning quite a challenge.
“I scanned it in as three separate pieces at 1200-dpi, imported it into Photoshop®, and pieced it back together there,” says Danielle. “We then printed it out via our latex printer onto fifty-four-inch-wide 3M Controltac IJ180-10 vinyl panels with overlaps and applied it to the wall via dry installation.”
According to Jeff, the devil is in the details when it comes to printing and installing graphic wraps. “Don’t underemphasize the importance of having accurate measurements and being extremely organized throughout the entire process,” he advises. “For example, we always label the back of our vinyl panels. So when it comes off the printer to the laminator, we know which panel is what and the installer knows which panel is supposed to go where.”
There has been a lot of positive change in Cleveland over the last several years, and Jeff credits being members of Destination Cleveland (the “convention and visitors bureau” for the city) as helping them keep their fingers on the pulse of what is going on in Northeast Ohio.
“Our graphics help the city shine and show all that Cleveland has to offer,” he says. “With the Republican National Convention coming to town [next month], we’re hoping to assist with even more graphics for that event.”
By Jeff Wooten
Photos: SpeedPro Imaging Cleveland West.
