LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — For "The Rebound Kentucky," we're highlighting businesses in the Bluegrass adapting to the pandemic.
If you walk into any restaurant or office, you can't miss the social distancing signs, posters, or stickers. Displaying those markers was one of the steps in reopening during a pandemic.
Image360 is a Lexington company that prints those signs and helps other businesses rebound.
Howard Stovall can sum up his business in less than a dozen words.
"If you can put words or pictures on it, we do it," said Stovall.
Image360 opened up more than 20 years ago. The mantra remains the same, even though the technology has changed.
"One of those panels we're printing in 15 minutes now could have taken somebody the better part of a day to put together," said Stovall.
When the pandemic began in March 2020, most of the company's clients closed up during the shutdown.
But Image360 kept printing. First to create markers for essential businesses that continued operating, then to meet a different demand.
"We started getting a lot of calls for community supportive signs," said Stovall.
From "Team Kentucky" to "Black Lives Matter": if you've seen one of these yard signs, there's a good chance it came from this warehouse off Leestown Road.
Now that we are more than ten months into the pandemic, many of Stovall's clients are back open.
Among them, Sav's Grill, whose owner stopped by Image360 to pick a poster for a garden in memory of the late city Councilmember, Jake Gibbs. Gibbs died last year.
The pandemic has not slowed Image360's business, but the messages and needs have changed. One of those is an image you're seeing increasingly in Lexington.
"We've done a lot of real estate signs. A lot of available signs over the past six months. Which is just sad because it means somebody closed," said Stovall.
But when those sites are occupied again, Stovall's company is one of the places that can provide the tools needed to reopen, and rebound.