Our Story

Old School Craftsmanship Combined With Modern Technological Expertise

Paying homage to our industry’s beginnings, we have a Civil War era Kodak graphic arts camera in the lobby of our building to greet our guests.

In our inaugural year of 1989, this Hell scanner launched Chroma Graphics into the graphics arts industry. Today it stands in the entry corner of our high tech prepress department as a reminder of our humble beginnings and where our industry’s technology was thirty years ago.

Chroma Graphics was established in 1989 as a small pre-press shop. At that time we offered photo retouching, color separations, prepress film preparation and proofing to the printing and publishing industry. In 1994 the printing industry was in the midst of another technological change that affected pre-press shops, printers and other related businesses. The decision was made in 1994 to expand the company’s offerings to include the printing services. This plan was a huge undertaking, because we had to purchase presses, bindery equipment, as well as all of the other equipment that was required for a full-service offering. Our team had to retrofit an existing prepress building into a full-fledged printing facility. The retrofit building was completed in March 1995 and we started printing in April 1995. We worked diligently as a group and built Chroma Graphics into one of the premier printers in the entire Washington, DC metropolitan area. Chromagraphics specialized in quick turn, full service production from prepress through data processing with full in-house mailing services.

Our Beautiful Green Facility

In 2004, we built our own state-of-the-art printing facility located in Upper Marlboro, Md. Our plant was designed from front to back with optimum use in mind for the present and future growth of the company. We take great pride in our facility and keep it clean as a whistle. We constantly hear from our clients, suppliers and other visitors that we maintain one of the cleanest printing plants they have ever been to. Chromagraphics has always maintained an environmentally responsible corporate culture throughout all aspects of our manufacturing process. We are leaders in the green manufacturing arena and that will continue to be a major corporate goal going forward. To see more of our green corporate initiatives, click here.

Our FSC certified facility located in Upper Marlboro is also certified within the Maryland Green Registry.

It never gets old to hear from our visitors that Chromagraphics is one of the cleanest print facilities they’ve ever been in.

Chromagraphics is Recognized for High Quality Printing Regionally and Nationally on a Regular Basis

Chromagraphics regularly produces corporate collateral, publications, higher end direct mail, catalogs and many challenging agency projects. We are proud of the fact that Chromagraphics has become an industry leader and regularly wins regional and national print quality awards. Click here to see more.

Chromagraphics is a perennial award winner in our regional PIA affiliate, PGAMA, winning multiple Best of Show and other top print quality awards. We have also won numerous national print quality awards.

We were First in the World to Run the Largest DIgital Press in the World

When we made the leap into digital printing in 2008, we made an impact within our own industry. Chromagraphics became known for high quality digital print results due to our meticulous and regular machine maintenance and staff expertise. This was not unnoticed within the industry and soon we became the high-end source for digital printing to top agencies, trade associations and corporations.

In 2010, we were selected to be the only beta site in the world to run the Xerox iGen 26” press. At that time, this was the largest digital press in the world. It was an unbelievable opportunity for Chroma Graphics, as we worked with their engineers weekly to give our feedback on what we liked and did not like. We ran this press for about six months before Xerox made the announcement that it was ready for the general market.

At the time we were selected to be a beta site for Xerox, we were the first in the world to run the largest digital press in the world, the Igen 26” press.

Chromagraphics Latest Chapter

In 2016 a new ownership group consisting of previous management and the top sales personnel purchased the company from the original owner. We simply changed the company name to one word: Chromagraphics. Since then we have added many new pieces of equipment offering an even wider range of products and services to the marketplace.