Roland DG's custom COTOVAN vehicle equipped with UV printer made a special appearance during a Christmas event held at Ibaraki Airport in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. COTOVAN provided a hands-on workshop for making key rings designed with participants photos as pilots and other travel-related characters.

Roland DG's custom vehicle COTOVAN recently visited the official store of the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters Japanese baseball team near the team's home field at Sapporo Dome in Hokkaido, Japan. Equipped with digital tools including direct-to-garment printers, COTOVAN helped visitors create one-of-a-kind tote bags and t-shirts printed with player uniform numbers, names and other design features.

Roland DGA, Roland DG's U.S. sales and marketing subsidiary, partnered with Adobe at the Adobe MAX 2019 conference in Los Angeles, CA to show designers, artists, photographers and other creative attendees how to turn their designs and artwork into profitable products with Roland DG technology.

A special exhibition was held at the Tokyo Station Gallery located in Tokyo Station to commemorate the centenary of the passing of Tatsuno Kingo, the architect of Tokyo Station. A workshop was set up at the exhibit so that visitors could print out some of his sketches and drawings of Tokyo Station onto T-shirts and bags. The workshop made use of Roland DG's direct-to-garment printers and cotodesign software employed at stores and events to create unique creative experiences.

Shiroi Koibito is a popular brand of cookies made in Hokkaido, Japan. Manufacturer and retailer ISHIYA Co., Ltd. provides a unique service where customers can make their very own cookie boxes by printing their favorite photo on the tin box using a Roland DG UV printer.

The membership-based, shared-factory Makers’ Base provides a unique service that has become a trending topic on social media in Japan. The service utilizes Roland DG's BT-12 direct-to-garment printer that is designed specifically for printing on cotton-based fabrics to enable customers to print out Japanese bento lunchboxes they designed themselves onto tote bags and other items.

In our previous blog we spoke with a customer using our new TrueVIS VG2-540 wide-format eco-solvent inkjet printer/cutter as part of their business operations. Miyaart Graphic, located in Shinjuku in Tokyo, is involved in the production of signs, panels, wallpapers and many other types of graphic arts projects for cultural facilities like art galleries and museums. For this blog we chatted with Miyaart Graphic president Yoshinari Miyata (pictured above).

Roland DG hosts various events at stores and other facilities to provide as many people as possible a unique creative experience for bringing their ideas to life using our digital tools like UV printers. These events are not only held in Japan, but are also increasingly being organized abroad. This report is about a workshop event recently held at a shopping complex in Taiwan.

Japan’s 11th community-based workshop Fab Lab DAZAIFU is located in Dazaifu, Fukuoka. This fab lab is unique in that it is operated by a private organization – GooDay, a chain of home improvement stores around northern Kyushu. Among the various digital tools available is Roland DG’s LEF-12 UV printer.

Located in Suruga-ku in Shizuoka, Giken Co., Ltd. is a distributor of wide-format inkjet printers and media used for signboards, and is also a professional sign maker with its own printing business. It was one of the first companies to begin using Roland DG’s new TrueVIS VG2-540 wide-format eco-solvent printer/cutter that was released in March 2019. We interviewed Masahiko Matsumoto, the president of Giken, about the printers being used at Giken.

Roland DG’s custom vehicle – first unveiled in February 2019 and equipped with our digital tools to give visitors unique, fun experiences like creating their very own accessories – has been given an official name: COTOVAN! It recently made its first mobile workshop tour to several GooDay home improvement stores located around northern Kyushu in Japan.

The dream trip of a lifetime is now a reality for a former Bosnian war refugee and current Arizona sign shop owner Mladen Mirkovic. Mirkovic was the winner of the Grand Prize in Roland DG’s Discover Roland/Explore Africa Contest – an all-expenses paid, luxury African sightseeing safari for two.