In 2016 large banners were placed on the side of the Langley Garage on Walnut Street. The massive project was a marvel to watch (literally) unfold. I had questions about the process and the company behind it, which led to High Resolutions, located at 127 Bearden Place. It’s not in Bearden, but rather behind (more or less) Yee Haw, just off Broadway. I toured the facility and wrote about the company’s great origin story and got to know owner Dave Ryan. Nine years have passed, the company has evolved and is now celebrating their thirtieth anniversary. I met with Dave to catch up on this innovative company sitting right next to our downtown.
As noted in the previous article, the company began as a pre-digital business, founded by former employees of Whittle Communications. Located originally at 123 W. Jackson in the Old City, Ryan joined in 1996. Starting in a tiny 500 square foot space, High Resolutions grew rapidly and by 2008 moved to their current 25,000 square feet facility. Ryan became, first, a co-owner, and then in 2016 assumed full ownership of the company. What the company does today barely resembles what it did in the beginning.
The company largely operates on a business-to-business model, providing all kinds of graphics from imprints on swag, to wall-covering graphics, to massive banners like those formerly seen on the Walnut Street Garage. Their online presence offers the option for businesses to customize orders directly and High Resolutions is equipped to carry the order through design, production, shipping, and, if needed, installation.
The company continues to expand in terms of staffing, services offered and capacity. As technology constantly changes, they’ve continued their commitment to having the latest and best in their field. They’ve also added staff over the years, focusing on finding the right fit for the company. Dave wants the company to have a family feel and he thinks they have been able to maintain that value.
Groups of staff are dedicated to a range of tasks, including taking the orders, design, and swag. More than one cluster operates the various printing machines, specializing on their particular portion of complex technology. Others pack and ship. A marketing division has been added as capacity has increased. He said most of their business through the years came from word-of-mouth, but now they are to a point they can expand that vision. When the company moved into the building in 2008, they boasted 16 employees, today over fifty people enjoy full-time jobs at the company, in addition to several who are part-time.
While a range of services are offered, Ryan says, “Really we are a production company.” As you can see from the photos, it is a very large production company, with various departments dependent on each other to take the product through to shipping. When I toured in 2016 the company had two large presses, whereas they now operate six. When last I visited, the presses primarily used eco-solvent, but now they have shifted to the more environmentally and employee safe latex. “It also prints incredible photographs and is extremely durable.” While the banners on the garage lasted a long time, they would likely have looked better, longer with the new material.
Some of the services offered might be surprising. The company not only can produce vehicle wraps, for example, they also apply them to the vehicles on location. One was in process as I toured. Other technological improvements since I last toured include all LED lighting and an upgraded HVAC system – both of which made their processes better, with better lighting and better capacity to control humidity, a variable in drying the printed items. They’ve also consulted to define a better workflow as far as interior placement of the departments even down to placement of items, “Everything has a place and belongs in a spot. It helped us get more efficient, more organized, and leaner.”
In an era in which manufacturing tends to be accomplished with more automation and fewer employees, Ryan says the company has become more efficient, but has increased sales and output, saying, “Rather than just add people or machines, we do it better so we can keep our prices low and fit more work into a day. We’re all about continuous improvement.” That sounds simple, but when disruptions like the supply-chain issues related to COVID-19 present themselves or we go through a period of tariff uncertainty, it can be quite difficult. (See their recent blog post related to tariffs.)
The company started as a service company supporting printers elsewhere. They evolved into doing the printing themselves and many of the people who were with them early remain. He pointed to the man over the press room and said they were college friends, and the man has worked with the company since 2001. Designer and Project Manager Amanda Miller, who was included in my previous article, nine years later is VP of Creative Services. “I’ve got people who have been here twenty-five, twenty-six years.”
In addition to roller printing, the company has flat-bed printers for printing on rigid surfaces. The capacity of the technology to make crisp, perfect prints on a range of materials of any size is quite remarkable. “When we started, we had a three-foot printer, and its output had to be laminated. Then we would apply an adhesive to a board and mount the print to the board. Now we skip all those steps. Our first printer was 36 inches wide, 72 dpi, and we’ve got photographic printers that are printing ten-foot wide.
Not all jobs require massive scale printing, and one department, their small format print shop, is dedicated to the smaller sized printed products. They produce small items, such as brochures and booklets. “You’ve got digital presses, off-set presses, laminating, cutting, scoring, folding.”
Beyond the technology, the thing that struck me most as we walked around was the way that everyone was locked in on their job. They sometimes moved between stations, sometimes communicated with others, but worked with an efficiency I’ve rarely seen in a manufacturing environment. I asked Dave if this holds true even when the boss isn’t walking around. He said they care about what they do, and they care about their customers and want them to have as near a perfect product as possible.
You likely see their work in all kinds of places, including downtown and beyond, from external signage to graphic walls inside offices. Recently you’ve seen their work inside the new Covenant Health Park where they did “90% of the graphics” inside the stadium. The banner on the steps as you enter the stadium is one of the most striking and presented a unique challenge. The graphics had to look complete from a distance but had to be made into strips and applied to individual steps. It’s worth looking from a distance and then looking up close. They also do smaller graphics for a lot of downtown businesses, including Cruze Farm, the vinyl sidewalk graphics used seasonally by Visit Knoxville, and more recently for Tesoro Gelato.
He concluded that it comes back to the relationships inside the company and of the company with their customers. “We do all this. We make graphics. But our passion is really building relationships and seeing people thrive. I think the most exciting thing to see in growth is that it’s all people in Knoxville and families. We have an incredible culture here. I have brothers who work here, husbands and wives, because if an opening comes up, they want their spouse to work here. We take a lot of pride in that. We are very much a family.”
Expect the company to continue to grow and incorporate new technologies like AI, but expect it to grow in a smart way, with an eye toward doing what they do just a little bit better. He wants to stay in the same location as they begin their next thirty years, but said demand may dictate second shifts, or moving some departments elsewhere. It’s all about growth but being smart. “We want to remain relevant and cutting edge, while protecting our culture.”