National Institute for the Study of Digital Media

Joe Catalano (left) having a conversation with Nicholas Hellmuth (right)

Chuck Spontelli looking at a fine art print made with the HP 5000 at Bowling Green State Univerity

The facility at Bowling Green State University has started with five employees and will increase in size.

The snapshots here show the pertinent people in the College of Technology (Catalano and Spontelli) as well as the initial employees of FLAAR at BGSU. Chuck Spontelli has a MS degree from the prestigious Rochester Institute of Technology. His specialty is color management as well as other aspects of printing technology.

Milos Krsmanovic has been hired to do a project this summer (2002) on hardware RIP and software RIPs for wide format inkjet printers. FLAAR will eventually be providing courses and training in RIPs.

Joe Catalano has an MBA degree from the University of Chicago as well as having completed an advanced management course at Harvard's Business School.

Brent (left) and Nicholas (right) in our test lab at BGSU, holding a Tikal temple print

Desiree holding an HP 5000 flower print

Nicholas Hellmuth graduated from Harvard, has three honorary research appointments at Yale University, and received his PhD from a European university.

The combined capabilities of the College of Technology at BGSU and FLAAR insure that we can provide a high level of assistance to companies and individuals who seek help, tips, and consulting services as they face the problems of trying to figure out which printer, inkjet media, inks, laminator, hardware or software to select.

FLAAR serves as consultant for Fortune 500 companies as well as companies who wish to reach that level.

Because about 100,000 people every month read the FLAAR reviews in 42 countries in three languages on our dozen web sites it is not possible to respond to fax inquiries unless to establish a professional relationship on a fee basis.

BGSU Technology building

Reviews, evaluations from FLAAR offer the actual facts on inkjet printers, media, and RIP software

FLAAR bases its reviews on in-house experience with a wide range of printers. We start with an Iris 3047 giclee printer (Ixia model), 72" ColorSpan DisplayMaker XII with full 12 colors of different inks, another 72" ColorSpan, this one a Mach 12 model, with quad-black inkjet coordinated with seven additional colors (total 11 ink lines).

For printing on textiles and fabrics the new Mimaki JV4 is loaded with six colors of acid dye ink as well as simultaneously loaded with another six colors of reactive dye ink. This remarkable printer can also handle direct printing on foamcore and other thick material.

An HP 5500 and HP 800ps with wide format scanner are en route to compliment the 60" HP 5000 and 36" HP 2800 already on site. BGSU also has several Epson printers as well as a 3-D printer (a rapid-prototyper).

We learn about Roland, Mutoh, Encad, Oce, and other printers by visiting sign shops, giclée print studios. There are three UV curable ink flatbed printers near our university. FLAAR staff spend considerable time checking out printers in person at DRUPA, IPEX, Photokina (FLAAR has an office in Cologne, Germany, near the Photokina tradeshow grounds), CeBIT. In the USA we gather documentation by attending Comdex, PhotoPlus Expo, PMA, ISA, SGIA, Graphics of the Americas and many regional shows. In past years we attended DPI, BigPicture Show (so you can see we have been at this for many years).

Dr Nicholas Hellmuth has lectured on piezo vs thermal printhead designs at the sign tradeshow in Mumbai, India. He has been consultant for sign shop in Mexico, for the conservation department of the University of Malta, and served for six months as resident consultant for digital imaging at the Japanese National Museum of Ethnology, in Osaka.