Shades of Innovation
Enhance a Colour Enriches Visual Design Solutions in Connecticut … and Beyond
Born and raised in the city that never sleeps, Kevin O’Connor will tell you that color is everywhere, in everything. Sixteen years ago, on a September morning, he remembers one particular color characterizing New York City’s skyline: blue.
It was a beautiful Tuesday. Clear, blue skies backdropped his drive to work, and, as usual, O’Connor turned up his car radio. Juxtaposed to the day, what he heard on the radio was ominous. He says that as he listened, he discovered that something “really, really strange” had happened to one of New York’s Twin Towers that morning.
He arrived at his office around 8:45 a.m. After tuning into the radio at work he learned that a second plane had also struck the World Trade Center.
“At that point, I knew it had been an attack,” O’Connor says. Little did the Owner/President of Enhance a Colour know what type of impact this national tragedy would have on his company in the days ahead.
But first, let’s take a step back to share how this entrepreneur got started in the printing business.
An Entrepreneur’s Start
O’Connor grew up in an average middle-class family where school and sports occupied most of his time. He attended New Jersey’s Rutgers University on a football scholarship and graduated with a B.S. in business and economics in 1971.
After college, he began working for a company selling printing equipment. Then, in 1974, he founded a full-service design, graphics and print manufacturing business called DV Communications. There, the individuality of each finished product spurred a passion within him for custom printing. As the company moved from using black-and-white printing techniques to incorporate color, he understood that his field of work would be one that continually evolved.
After 13 years at that company, in 1987, he and his wife, Barbara, and brother, James, formed Enhance a Colour. What started out as a simple black-and-white printing operation grew into a premier producer of creative, colorful visual solutions, utilizing every type of large-format color printing equipment available on the market at the time. Today, Enhance a Colour operates primarily out of its 165,000- square-foot office in Danbury, Conn., about 70 miles north of New York City, and also has a showroom and sales office in Manhattan.
Before September 11, 2001, the company focused mostly on providing color separation services for magazines and high-end corporate clients. During that time many printing companies in the industry were hesitant to use digital technologies, and Enhance a Colour was no different. Since about the mid-1970s, most professionals had used film and film proofs for printing needs. New digital technologies came with a steep learning curve, and were a daunting, “strange new frontier” to some.
The events on 9/11 had a very sobering effect in the New York marketplace. Immediately after the attacks, all business on and below 14th Street came to a dead stop for weeks—and the residual effects lasted for months, O’Connor says. As a result, many New York companies went out of business. Around this same time, the digital technology revolution in the printing industry had taken hold. In less than six months’ time, Enhance a Colour—which hadn’t yet expanded into digital printing solutions—saw its color separation business’ annual revenue plummet from $6 million to less than $2 million.
“Between my brother and I, we have five kids,” O’Connor says. “I knew we had to act quickly to keep our business afloat. When you have five kids that you have to one day put through college, you don’t have time to dabble.”
Changing with the Times
In 2001, Enhance a Colour became one of the first printing companies to offer environmental graphics, and soon after incorporated digital technologies into its equipment and in how it designed graphics. These are just a couple of examples demonstrating how the company has constantly worked to reinvent itself, and how it is adept at using problem-solving approaches to meet the needs of clients.
O’Connor’s current duties at the firm are all-encompassing. “Chief cook, bottle washer, you name it,” he says of his role, which involves heading the sales team and working with various representatives to provide visual solutions for a diverse array of clients and projects. “The work that Enhance a Colour does is top-notch. I have great teammates around me that give clients more than what they expect, so it’s a great place to work.”
Enhance a Colour works predominantly in the New England and Mid-Atlantic areas, but has national accounts across the country. From design to production to installation, this one-stop shop and its 45 employees offer visual printing solutions for trade shows, interior environments, commercial spaces and corporate environments. “We create any type of visuals that someone can think of,” O’Connor adds. “They don’t have to go to flooring people or to wallpaper people or to other vendors—we can custom-create everything they need at our location.”
The company’s primary focus is on corporate branding, which involves working with a variety of business sectors, including finance, universities, airlines and amusement parks. Delivering quality products and services to clients is embedded in the company’s values.
“Service and quality—that’s what makes us stand out,” O’Connor emphasizes. “We deliver when we are supposed to deliver, and we deliver a first-class product.”
COLOR-CENTRIC TECHNIQUES ENRICH PERCEPTIONS
Enhance a Colour explores the use of innovation to conduct business. With the addition of new products and services, such as printing to wood and glass and the ability to dye carpets, the company is able to tailor each project to its clients’ specific needs.
The firm’s technologies include waterjet cutters, which use high-pressured water to cut sheets of materials such as steel, as well as lasers and CNC cutters. Modern advancements such as UV printing (which dries ink with ultraviolet light) and dye-sublimation printing (which transfers dyes with heat) combined with other methods give the firm the ability to dye and print to a variety of surfaces, textures and materials.
When used in the right way, color can play a significant role in the way people perceive things, O’Connor says. “Color is what the world is all about. People don’t want white, they want color. Our work is always about what our clients want and need,” he adds.
But why exactly does O’Connor and his team focus on color-centric design solutions? The reason is simple—colors trigger certain emotional and psychological reactions, which is an important consideration when supporting clients’ branding strategies.
Think about some of the most readily recognized brands out there. Coca Cola’s combination of white typeface against a red backdrop balances boldness with energy; in a marketing sense, red stimulates heart rates and encourages impulse purchasing. Starbucks’ dark green is natural, organic and calming—subconsciously assuring consumers that products are of good quality. Facebook’s use of blue creates a sensation of trust and security (a reason that motivates many banks and businesses to use blue in their branding schemes). Thus, a sophisticated understanding of the psycho-physiological science behind color can enrich designs and enhance a brand’s effectiveness.
A Stunning Display of Expertise
Some of the firm’s major projects include the production of visuals and graphics for the Super Bowl over the past five years, branding for finance companies and high-end clientele, internal timeline walls for museums, and fabric walls for events.
These projects help Enhance a Colour stand out among other firms by demonstrating the rarity of the company’s products and services.
“We are in a truly unique situation when you talk about the ability to print to glass, to wood, to wallpaper, to flooring and to ceiling acoustics,” O’Connor says. “Our niche is that we provide a variety of services that can be specifically tailored to meet our clients’ needs.”
Now bringing in an annual revenue of $8 million, Enhance a Colour does business as an ever-adapting company.
“Let me tell you, it’s been a ride.” O’Connor says. “The greatest part of it is that you wake up every day and know that today is going to be different than all the rest.”