Any local history buff will have the time of their life visiting with Ron Amiet, owner of Amiet Printing. Ron's family founded their printing company over one hundred years ago and have seen the industry progress from letter press printing to offset printing and now to computer aided printing. To tell everything we learned while visiting with Ron would require the writing of a mini-novel. While we don't even dream of becoming novelists in this lifetime, we are pleased to be able to bring you Ron's overview of Amiet Printing's history and services;
Amiet Printing has been around since it was founded by my great-grandfather John Amiet in 1893. My great-grandfather ran it until 1947 when my grandfather took over and he ran the shop until I became the owner operator in 1993.
My great-grandfather was actually a botanist and was selling Indian artifacts around Maysville. When he was getting his ware ready to sell, he needed labels so he bought an old printing press and began making his own labels. Since he had a printing press, everyone started coming around and wanting him to do printing for them. He turned one of the rooms in my great great-grandfather's gun shop into his print shop. He developed lead poisoning due to handling of lead type in the early 1900s and was told that he needed to get out of the printing business, so, he sold it to Pastor Grayson in Applecreek. After a few months, Pastor Grayson decided he didn't want to run it any more so he gave it back to my great-grandfather. My great-grandfather took it over again and in the 1930s, my great aunts and uncles ran the shop until my grandfather took it over. My grandfather ran it jointly with my great aunt and in 1952, they switched from letter press printing to photo offset. My great aunt decided to do letter press printing from her home, so, she left my grandfather and she printed napkins and wedding invitations from home until the late 1980s.
When I was a small child, we would come out here to visit. Watching the presses back then was something very fascinating. I liked to watch the paper shoot through the machine. Fortunately, my grandfather was part of the school board and he was instrumental in having a printing department started in Waynedale. Consequently, Waynedale had a very good graphic arts program and I studied graphic arts all four years at high school. I went to a technical school for a few years, went into the industry for a few years after that, and then, went back to school for printing. After my days at printing school, it was time to take over the family business.
Amiet Printing primarily does commercial offset printing. We print envelopes, letterhead stationery, and business cards. We're equipped for four color printing and have the latest computer equipment for photo manipulation and layout. We can design and print brochures for business owners and print wedding invitations in addition to stitching, folding, and collating. We can add perforations to printed material, incorporate sequential numbering on forms, and score brochures and other items printed on thick paper to make sure they fold straight.
We're very cost effective when making copies for customers. Once the item is on the press, we just charge a penny apiece to run the copies through. One of our biggest advantages is that since all of our equipment has been paid off for years, we have a very low overhead so we can keep our prices low and still give top quality results. Actually, we're the most affordable print shop around.
We handle everything from small jobs to big jobs and we do runs of five hundred pieces on up. There's really no size run that we can't handle and our average run is anywhere from ten thousand to one hundred thousand copies. Most of our work is 8½ by 11, but, we're also equipped to print 11 by 17 pieces. In addition to printing, we also sell paper and we deliver throughout the Wooster area.
I love to give tours of our facility and introduce people to the history of Amiet Printing. I still have one of the presses that was bought by my great-grandfather and we still use it today for numbering, perforations, and scoring. It's neat to watch it run and it shows just how much the printing industry has evolved over the years. We're only three miles from downtown and we're pretty easy to find. Give me a call and I'll give you a tour!
Amiet Printing has a long and successful history of serving the local community's printing needs. To put their experience and expertise to work for you, call Ron today and don't forget to tell him that The Advocate sent you!
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