Magna IV

In the 35 years since Kent Middleton’s parents, Gary and Patricia Middleton, founded the print shop Magna IV Color Imaging Inc., the industry has undergone technological revolutions that have made the printing portion of the company a near-afterthought.
As Kent Middleton, the president of the 60-employee shop, put it, “If you just put ink on paper anymore in the printing business, you’re going to die. You’ve got to expand.”
For Magna IV, expansion has meant, over the years, merging with International Graphics, Parkin Printing and Peerless Engraving Co. The one-time print shop now calls itself a graphics communication business and prides itself on being able to vary the medium on which it applies images to just about anything, including ink-on-paper, signage, boxes, displays, uniforms, coupon inserts, back-lit menu boards, posters, banners and panel graphics.
“Whatever you can come up with, we can do,” Middleton says.
Much of Magna IV’s business is in the restaurant industry, for which it supplies materials for franchisees nationwide. (One notable client is the Dave & Buster’s chain.) It facilitates that by allowing the various operations to access personalized Web portals to customize the graphics, logos, names and prices on what could otherwise be a standard-issue piece of signage or other printed material.
The firm also touts its variable data printing — essentially, the ability to create an instantly customized print run by applying database information, as in a mass mailing or marketing campaign. That’s old-school printing merged with new technology, and it’s how an established print shop stays nimble in a digital age.

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