Success Story – Throttle Syndicate
July 09, 2024
Life in the fast lane with Throttle Syndicate
If you follow the Professional Dirtbike Racing at all, you will have seen Throttle Syndicate’s work at both indoor and outdoor motocross events. Even if you don’t follow along in the sport, chances are that you have seen a dirtbike sporting their eye-catching decals throughout your neighborhood. Not only does this motorcycle graphic manufacturing company supply – and sponsor – supercross teams, but they also create customized graphics for anyone who wants to personalize their bike.
The experts in designer decals
The Production Manager at Throttle Syndicate, Victoria, explained the business to us. “Outside of supporting and sponsoring our race teams, we also accomodate the average rider in customizing their personal bikes. In fact, custom orders are the brink of the work we do. Most people choose from one of our designs then add their name, number and logos however if they want something more custom then we have worked with people to create a completely new design based on their ideas and inspirations.”
To achieve this, Throttle Syndicate uses large format digital printers from Epson. “We have two SureColor S80600s,” says Victoria, “and we also have a Royal Sovereign heated laminator for once the graphics are printed. They get a thick 15mm laminate, which is the thickest you can get, and that really helps with durability while they’re on the racetrack, out in the desert or getting more technical in the hills. Once laminated, the graphics are ready to be cut out by piece with our Graphtec FCX-2000 flatbed cutter. Throughout this process, we’re using Caldera software to send the art files to both the printer and the cutter.”
What drives Throttle Syndicate?
Throttle Syndicate has been using the Caldera RIP software for printing since they first opened their doors in 2018 and have recently extended their use of Caldera to its cutting operations when testing out Caldera PrimeCenter. Victoria says, “I’m really happy that we gave PrimeCenter a shot, because our previous cutting software was kind of glitchy, freezing up other programs when we opened up a cut file, interrupting whatever I was doing in the background until the job was done cutting. So now, with Caldera’s VisualCut software, I can continue working in other applications while simultaneously sending art files to the cutter.”
Using Caldera has been a learning experience for the team. “In regard to the printers, Caldera enables you to do so much that at first, it was a little overwhelming. But it’s been great for us, as it means we can print on specialty materials along with other more unusual settings to achieve a specific look. We can save our print profiles and use them again with pre-made folders which, given the variety of materials we offer, is useful for digital organization. We print on regular white vinyl, clear vinyl and metallic vinyl and each one requires unique printing settings. The fact that Caldera can accommodate all this is one of the things I really like about it.”
“When it comes to Caldera’s VisualCut Software, it creates a completely separate cutting file for each art file and goes into the software’s queue automatically, making each file ready for cutting as soon as it is pulled up. We print each file with a barcode now as well so as soon as I scan that barcode into the software, the cut-ready file is brought up and immediately begins scanning for registration marks. Our production assistants save a lot of time in between jobs with this feature.”
Another area in which Victoria appreciates Caldera is in its PrimeCenter software. “I’ve found that PrimeCenter really helps cut down on production time in general, especially for the designers. They can now focus completely on design work and less on the preparation of each file for production. I think it saves even more time for quoting miscellaneous artwork with large quantities,” she says. “When external designers send in miscellaneous artwork for small decals, we are now able to input the desired quantity into PrimeCenter, which gets the nesting done in minutes, working out exactly how many of each sheet needs to be printed to obtain the desired quantity. In the process, it eliminates human error, especially for ensuring the correct quantity has been placed on each sheet to get the grand total.”
Support for the team
Throttle Syndicate finds value in another aspect of Caldera’s software. “We really appreciate all your guys’ help, especially in the transition to using PrimeCenter,” says Victoria. “It’s easy to get lost in all the different setting options. However, the techs at Caldera, particularly Joey, really helped to get everything set up correctly to have us running smoothly today. Sometimes blogs and reading materials are only so helpful and you really need a human to guide you through the process, so we are grateful we had that option with the PrimeCenter demo we did.”
For Caldera, great customer support is always part of the deal, and our workflow specialist, Joey Phillips, is on a personal mission to make sure clients get what they need from the software. Because of it, Throttle Syndicate is up to speed with their production workflow.
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