Target Report: Print Everything, Everywhere, All at One Place

We are inundated with printed images. While the steady decline of newspapers and other forms of print gives a general societal impression that print is a dying industry, the truth is that we are surrounded by more print in more places on more things than ever before. The use of printed images in our environment has proliferated.

Enabled by continual development of digital print technologies, almost everything we use has images printed on it in one form or another. Just about anything we can imagine being printed, can be printed, and is. Online ordering systems drive evermore printed editions of one. (For more see: The Target Report: On-Demand Print & Merch is BIG Business for Private Equity – November 2024.) In our malls and shopping centers, entire retail environments are created, and recreated, again and again, in short time, with the use of printed graphics. Cultural venues, such as museums, are rich with graphic displays that keep up with the times and changing exhibitions. Tall buildings are wrapped and draped. Vehicles of every sort carry branding and messages.

Private Equity Investors Believe in Print

About ten years ago, one of the leading partners in a well-known PE firm that invests in the lower end of the middle market told me that they would not even consider an investment in a company that provided marketing-related commercial print services. Too risky. Old technology. Messaging is moving online. No potential for meaningful returns.

What a difference a decade makes. Print has evolved into a multi-faceted visual communication industry that eagerly applies graphics to almost every surface in any location, with incredible images, rendered in high fidelity, and in quick order. In January, that same PE firm, The Riverside Company, announced its investment in The Vomela Companies. The smart money has rediscovered print, or as it is now more accurately described: visual communications, or specialized graphic solutions, or visual solutions, and other such non-print monikers.

Visual Communications on the Move

The Vomela Companies, as a whole, represent an incredible range of printed graphic capabilities. The company’s slogan is “Big Ideas, Any Surface, Any Scale.” The company is now comprised of multiple divisions, with over 1,300 employees and more than 20 locations across North America.

Core to the company’s success over the past several decades has been its transportation group. The division prints and installs graphics on fleets of trucks, motorcoaches, trains, buses, delivery vans, and cars. Founded in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1947, Vomela enjoyed a close relationship for many years with the 3M company, specifically working together in the development of techniques to print on pressure sensitive vinyl stocks and die cut unique shapes for custom decal applications. According to company history, the 3M company was the major customer of Vomela and dominated its manufacturing capacity for two decades up to the early 1980’s. That relationship led Vomela into the fleet business, for which it provided decals for truck fleet marking as well as specialized decals for the automotive and motorcoach markets as an OEM supplier.

In concert with 3M, Vomela’s dedication to develop durable custom decals for the automotive manufacturers gave many cars a unique style that was only achievable by the application of printed graphics. There were, of course, the usual racing stripes and big bold lettering, but some decals went much further, became iconic emblems, and defined a brand.

The original Firebird nameplate emblem was derived from a stylized image of a bird based on a Hopi Native American symbol. With its wings turned downward, head turned sideways, and its one eye apparently half closed, the logo became known inside GM as the “Sick Chicken.” Seeking to design a more uplifting positive image for Pontiac’s signature sporty car, Bill Porter, the Pontiac Studio Design Chief at the time, designed a new logo. He lifted the bird’s wings up into a victory pose. He positioned its head to be looking upward with flame shooting from its mouth. He took further design inspiration from the feathery pattern on a Tiffany vase in his private collection. The result was the addition of a surround of fiery lines sweeping up and around the bird.

With this new refreshed and energetic logo in hand, the design team applied a large test bird decal to the hood of a bright red Pontiac Firebird. They drove the newly decorated car up and down the strip in Detroit, stopping at local diners, drive-ins, gas stations, and hangouts. The reaction to the car from young folks convinced the design team to float the idea of adding the large graphic bird image to the car, a radical departure from the standards of the time. It took a couple years to convince Pontiac’s top management to allow the bird decal to be put on the hood of their cherished hot-selling sports car, but eventually they relented and in 1973 the graphic was offered as an option for an additional $55. The “Hood Bird” caught on and became a standard on the tricked-out models offered for sale, with the decal glued to the hood of every high-performance Special Edition, Anniversary and Pace Car model sold until 1981. No longer the sick forlorn downward-facing bird, the new printed firebird has ever since been affectionately known by car enthusiasts as the “Screaming Chicken.”

Diversity of Graphic Solutions

When 3M pulled its decal manufacturing inhouse in the early 1980’s, Vomela contracted, laying off a significant portion of its workforce. Getting back on its feet, the company began a four-decade journey, fueled by serial strategic acquisitions, to arrive at its current highly diversified position.

In addition to transportation graphics, the company is a powerhouse in retail wide-format printing applications. The company’s C2 division, with locations across the US and in BC, Canada, specializes in retail signage and on-demand digital printing. Markets are served with products including in-store displays, store décor, wayfinding graphics, and event & experiential marketing. The Pratt Visual Solutions division manufactures permanent retail displays and signage, among other retail decorations.

The company also has a commercial printing group built via a series of acquisitions. Former companies now under the Vomela commercial umbrella include the Master Print, Elk Graphics, and Tepel Brothers printing companies. While Vomela remains largely a wide and grand format printing organization, this regional diverse group of commercial printing facilities provides collateral and direct mail support for its national enterprise-level customer base.

From its initial start as a small company founded by Jack Vomela that began by decorating Christmas gift tags with glitter and flocking, in 2024 the company reported revenue of $364 million. While it may not print on everything, everywhere, all in one place, the company surely is part of the trend to apply graphics in ever new and diverse ways.

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Click to enlarge.

Click to enlarge.

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