Our Lightbrigade grand format print production facility was first started in the early 90’s. Provisionally it was used as a working R&D facility for B&P Graphic Systems, allowing us to properly evaluate print solutions in a genuine working environment prior to making them available to our customers. It has since grown to become the UK’s largest ‘all digital’ wide format production facility, with a comprehensive kit list and a team of professional sales and support staff that are amongst the most knowledgeable in the digital print world.

We have broken new ground on a number of occasions, we were the first UK business to install a large format electrostatic system, the first to install multiple grand format Vutek printers, the first to install a UV curable flatbed print system and we aim to be the first to install a digital system capable of printing with white ink (installation scheduled for Summer 2004).

Our expertise in digital production is of direct benefit to our system customers, as our practical hands on expertise of digital print is without peer. We know the real issues that face customers because we face many of those self same issues day in and day out.

It is this experience, in conjunction with our comprehensive kit list, that marks us out as being truly ‘first in digital print’.

Our philosophy as a trade supplier is simple and easily understood, we use trade print to allow our system customers to bridge the gap between the equipment they buy today and the equipment they envisage installing in the future.

As part of the B&P Lightbrigade Group we do not try to hide the fact that we are a supplier of both print equipment and print services, in fact it is this unique ability to cover all of the bases that makes us stand out from the ordinary suppliers who sell systems or print without having a full understanding of the whole digital print process. We are at the leading edge of digital print whichever way you look at it.

A phrase we often coin is ‘cradle to the grave’, by this we mean the ability to take a customer from his first steps into digital printing through to the point where they have genuine industry expertise, often with their own multi-million pound print facility. Whilst to some this might seem like a pipe dream, it is in fact a path that we have trodden with a large number of our customers.

As an example of this we can cite a well known Manchester based large format specialist that has been a B&P customer since his first foray into digital with a water based inkjet printer. Already established in the vinyl signage market using Macs and PC’s alongside vinyl cutting plotters, we installed an inkjet printer at his facility and supported his business by filling the gaps in his production capabilities with our own in-house print equipment. This enabled him to build a customer base of wide format print consumers to the point where it made sense for him to purchase an additional solvent based printing system. The pattern was replicated again, with us providing grand format ultra-wide print as a trade service. Again his customer base was built up, using our ability to produce grand format print to unlimited size, to the point where his business could fund the purchase of it’s own grand format system. In 2002 our sister company B&P Lightbrigade installed a 3.2 metre wide ScitexVision grand format printer into his Manchester facility. He now owns one of the UK’s most successful wide format digital print factories. We are proud to have been involved right from the outset.

This story is replicated right across the UK, with many of the largest suppliers of digital print, starting off as, and remaining today, customers of both Trade Brigade and B&P Lightbrigade.

So whether you are just sticking your toe in the digital water prior to investing in your first system, or you want us to help you bridge the gap between your first system and your next system, talk to us about Trade Brigade - the trade print service that builds businesses.