How we got started 3rd Generation of design / print Service

The Printing Business in in Los Angeles as I remember it 1960s – 1982 

Growing up in So Cal I remember going to my dad’s printing business on a few Saturdays to watch my dad work in the print shop from concept to completion for our family  Holiday cards that Dad designed and printed.  His company was located on Temple Ave off the Hollywood Fwy. I vividly recall the strong smell of the printers ink,  my 1st experience of getting ink into your blood as they would say. 

My Dads company would later become a full-time job for me.  I started as a floor boy in the summer of 1972 at his plant which had moved from Temple Ave near downtown LA in 1966 to a larger facility located at 120 West El Segundo Blvd in South Los Angeles.  As a floor boy and pressman’s helper my job was to keep the shop floors clean and do wash ups on the printing presses between jobs to make the ink fountains and offset blankets ready for the next print jobs. 

After the Summer of 1972 with ink in my blood,  I decided after graduation from High School to pursue a career in the printing industry. I attended college to earn a degree in Printing Management which I obtained in 1977 from California State University, Los Angeles.  I started my formal printing education at Pasadena City College in 1972 while still in High School  under the direction of Professor Wally Bennett who was also one of my instructors at Art Center College of Design where I took some night classes. After Pasadena City College, I transferred to Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York in 1974  majoring in Printing Technology. After a year at RIT I transferred back home to California to attend Cal Poly San Luis Obispo from 1975-1976  Majoring in Graphic Communications before finally finishing my Printing Management degree at Cal State Los Angeles.  After graduation my dad made me an offer I could not refuse to work at his Printing Company Porter & Griffin Printers & Lithographers as an Outside Print Salesman. After a brief Training program, I hit the road running. Within a few years on the job, I was able to earn enough money from sales commissions to buy my first home at the age of 24.   Most of the Printing companies and related service providers such as paper, ink, binderies etc,  we competed against and bought services from in addition to my dad’s company are no longer in business or have been swallowed up by other companies. The companies I remember still stick in my mind along with the individuals who I competed with in sales for many years. North Hollywood Printing Co, Penn Litho, Scott & Scott, Anderson Litho, Color Graphics, Welsh Graphics, George Rice & Sons, Rotary Offset Printers, Franklin Press, Crown Printing, Parker & Sons, Kenyon Press, Columbia Litho, Sinclair Printing, Gardner/ Fullmer, Costello Bros., Gilmore Envelope, Hart Bindery, Castle Press, Typecraft, Haagen Printing,  Overland Press, Queen Beach Printers, World Color, Ultra Color, Noland Paper, Blake Moffit & Towne, Crown Zellerbach Paper Co., Kramer Ink, Gans Ink, Eureka Press,  Uarco, Westform Industries, CGX,  Standard Register, Moore Busines Forms, Bowne, Calsonic Miura, Colorscope, Phoenix Graphics & Printing,  Jeffries Banknote, Graphic Press, to name a handful of the top LA printers, paper suppliers, typesetters, color separators, binderies, service providers back in the day. Los Angeles in the 80's once had about 2000 print companies and service providers,  so hard to name them all. So many great companies and great people and a few still around today with many new players. 

With all that said printing is alive and well in LA  although different. The Digital world changed the Printing Industry drastically and eliminated photo composition, film, stripping etc. Today digital presses and offset presses are in almost every larger print facility and the price for printing jobs has been reduced due to the cost effective digital prepress and digital print options. 

At JBGmg today (yes we still have ink in our blood) we worked for many companies and now  represent a wide variety of design/prepress/digital and offset print facilities across the nation as a print  broker / manufacturers agent and invite you to give us a call on your next marketing, design/ print project.

Operators are standing by to take your call @ 562.810.8881 or you can email us @ jbgriffin@jbgmg.com