Ink Big Honored as ‘Innovative Manufacturer’

Ink Big Co., a Euclid, OH-based innovator and manufacturer of nano-technology digital ink and protective coatings for the digital graphic arts market, was the featured “Innovative Manufacturer” in the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Town Hall Forum, held June 15 in Cleveland and sponsored by Staples, Inc.
    
Ink Big is a small, female-owned and run business that is gaining a considerable amount of new business growth and now has seen significant growth in the demand for its products both in the U.S. and internationally. Recently, Ink Big was selected to be the ink manufacturer of choice for a major OEM printer manufacturer, with its products sold by the OEM globally for all their customers’ printer-consumable needs. As the only ink and coatings company currently utilizing nano-technology to produce its pigmented inks, Ink Big’s products are sought out by companies globally.
    
When Ink Big was formed by Susanna Ross, her husband Ron Ryavec, Christina Short and her husband Steve Szewczyk, they decided to focus their efforts on advanced materials technology for the digital graphic arts market rather than manufacture inks in the traditional way. Today, they are the only ink company that manufactures nano-technology pigmented inks. Through Chroma-Enhancement Technology, the company’s proprietary technology, its solvent-based piezo ink jet inks offer tremendous color saturation and cleanliness of shade, and has the added benefit of keeping printheads virtually clog-free. The company uses high performance pigments, and its inks are standardized on Pantone CMYK colors, an added benefit for customers. Ink Big’s High Velocity Cohesion Technology ensures that ink droplets remain intact while being deposited from printhead to substrate, resulting in a higher resolution and low dot gain for the cleanest, sharpest images producible.
    
Ink Big was selected on the basis of its exciting technology to participate in the SBA Town Hall Forum. Melanie Sabelhaus, deputy director of the SBA, co-chaired the event with Tom Stemberg, Chairman of Staples. The purpose was to showcase what the SBA can do to support small businesses, and in this case, those that utilize innovation in their manufacturing. The SBA has greatly supported Ink Big in its early days. It was well attended – more than 150 people – and Ink Big has since been able to capitalize on the participation with new areas of opportunity and greater interest in support by local financial institutions.