45 Years of Serving the Valley and Alaska
Contributed by L&B Color Printing
L&B Color Printing was started in 1978 by Lavon and Betty Barve (L&B). Originally on the right side of Knik on Railroad Ave., They later purchased the property at the corner of Denali Ave. and Railroad Ave. They moved their presses and other equipment to the new location. Business was good and there was a need to expand the building to allow for more presses and other equipment. For a while they even operated an antique store out of one portion of the shop.
It was a family-run business which Lavon and Betty operated with their children, Mary, Lance, and Judy.
Lavon was also an avid dog musher for many years, winning the Yukon Quest and finishing in the top ten of the Iditarod many times. Later, when Lavon would be a checkpoint official during the Iditarod, Betty and the crew would “hold down the fort” keeping the shop going and cranking out customers orders.
Technology changes and L&B Color Printing changed with it. In the beginning everything was cut and pasted together. Typesetting would be done on what was called a Compugraphic Typesetter. What few fonts were available were on strips that would be placed into the machine. The typed project would come out on a special film that was developed. Special tape was used to put borders around items. Then the project would be shot with a camera and the image on the negative would be burned onto a metal plate for each job. The plates would be put onto the offset printing press and the items printed.
Desktop publishing came later and L&B has gone through their share of computers as technology has changed. Later silvermaster technology was used for simpler jobs. It would shoot the image that had been printed on paper by the computer and place it directly onto a paper plate that the machine developed and then it could go straight onto the press.
Metal plates were still used for more complex projects. L&B Color Printing later acquired computer to negative technology that would send the images directly to film that would be developed and burned onto metal plates. Gone were the days of having to send full color projects to a special shop in Anchorage that would produce color separated negatives for the shop to use for color plates. L&B could output straight from the computers to four negative films with the colors already separated.
Silvermaster and metal plates have given way to polyester plates that are printed directly onto from the computers and straight onto the presses. Today, L&B Color Printing even uses a digital press that prints full color projects directly to the desired paper for projects up to 13”x26”.
When L&B Color Printing started, it used a couple antique letter presses in addition to its offset presses. One was set up to do die cutting such as windows on presentation folders. The other was specially set up to put numbers on raffle tickets and forms. Each item had to be placed onto the press individually, get numbered and removed. Now L&B has a machine that feeds them though at a much faster speed, that is when the items aren’t being automatically numbered as they are printed on the digital press. One of the circa 1910 letter presses still sits on display at the shop.
With time L&B Color Printing added equipment for cutting vinyl letters for vehicles and such. They also added two large format printers. One is used for printing blueprints, indoor wall menus as well as large pictures and posters for mounting on foam board. The other specializes in printing outdoor items such as banners, vehicle magnets and more.
Besides growing technologically, L&B Color Printing has grown in its reach within the state. It now has customers all over Alaska that place orders to be picked up when someone is coming through Wasilla or even mailed directly to them in their own town.
Just as technology changes, children grow up and start families of their own. Mary now lives in Florida with her family which includes grandchildren. Lance still lives and works in Alaska and has his own grandchildren. Judy continues to work at the shop though and her son, Lavon’s grandson, James Charles, runs the presses.
In 1992, Lavon Barve was recognized by the Alaska State Legislature for being the first and continuously running print shop in Wasilla. That was 31 years ago; but Lavon and his print shop are still going strong. L&B Color Printing and Lavon have served Wasilla, the Valley and the rest of Alaska for 45 years. The Barves look forward to serving Alaska for many more years to come.