Tools Help Kinko’s Build Oversize Imaging Market

Dean Zatkowsky hasn’t been carrying around a 7-foot-tall saw and an 8-foot-tall hammer because he has a big house to build.

Rather than construction tools, the larger-than-life, photocopied objects are promotional tools used by the western division marketing manager of the Kinko’s office services chain.

Zatkowsky has been using those images to demonstrate the ability that Ventura-based Kinko’s has to make oversize, multicolor copies. The 900-plus store chain increased that capability with its recent acquisition of the seven Southern California locations of Absolute Imaging, a firm specializing in copies as large as 18 feet tall.

“We’ve always had a relationship with Absolute--we’ve been using them to out-source with Kinko’s in Southern California,” Zatkowsky said. “Absolute will cease to exist as an entity. We’re just bringing the services and the machinery into the Kinko’s branches.”

Initially, the Absolute technology will be available at Kinko’s stores in Orange, Costa Mesa, Long Beach, Marina del Rey, Van Nuys and two other locations in Los Angeles. Zatkowsky said the computer-generated copying ability will be adapted at other stores as current Kinko’s staff members receive the necessary training.

Absolute Imaging was founded in 1988 by a former Kinko’s partner.

“The reason for us bringing them into Kinko’s is that we were developing Absolute as a separate brand for high-technology oversize printing,” Zatkowsky said. “But the technology was moving so rapidly we found that we were incorporating it in our branches anyway. We were about to cross paths in services offered. To make a separate brand for it would be redundant.”

The acquisition of Absolute Imaging comes on the heels of the 1997 move by Kinko’s to wrap its 900 branches--130 joint ventures--into a unified corporate structure. That structure, Zatkowsky said, will make it easier for Kinko’s to uniformly adapt the Absolute technology.

“Some of these people who are working at Absolute [stores], we’ll have them infiltrating our branches in Southern California,” he said.

“At Kinko’s, we have a base level of knowledge, but these folks know how to take it to a much higher level--mounting, lamination, better clarity and higher quality,” he said. “No mater how much technology you have, all these hints, tips or tricks are important.”