Epson announces new media for color ink jets; Iron-On Transfer Paper and High Quality Ink Jet Paper expand product offering

Business Wire, Sept 3, 1996

TORRANCE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 3, 1996--Epson, the creator of high-quality, award-winning products, Tuesday announced the expansion of its supplies product line with the introduction of Epson Iron-On Transfer Paper and Epson High Quality Ink Jet Paper.

These products are additions to Epson's existing line of quality ink cartridges, ribbons and other media. Epson's newest packaging design, which exhibits dynamic graphics and colors and clear product identifiers, will also debut with these new papers.

Transfer Paper

Epson Iron-On Transfer Paper, available now for $14.95 for 10 sheets, provides an economical and high-quality way to personalize T-shirts, canvas bags, aprons, dresses and much more.

Users can put their favorite photo on a T-shirt, their child's name on his canvas school book bag, create customized holiday placemats or produce large-scale computer-generated color images and iron them on, in 720 dpi photographic quality color text and images. The transfer paper is available in letter and Super B sizes and can be transferred with either a home iron or a professional heat press.

The paper creates the industry's most vivid and durable transferable colors. When tested with output from an Epson printer, the images transferred to the T-shirt were found to hold up under years' worth of washing.

The Iron-On Transfer Paper package also includes a special form for customers to order Print Artist by Sierra Designs and blank Hanes Beefy T-Shirts directly from Epson at a special price.

High Quality Ink Jet Paper

Lower in cost than other specially coated ink jet paper, Epson's High Quality Ink Jet Paper is designed for 720 dpi printing. It provides deep, sharp colors and text, and is appropriate for reports, graphs, handouts and more. Packs of 100 letter-sized sheets are sold at $8.99 estimated street price.

"Epson continues to meet our printer customers' needs by providing media for all types of printing at competitive price points for business and home applications," said Keith Kratzberg, group product manager, printers, Epson.

"This is just the first introduction of many designed to meet the needs of all printer users -- from student reports to professional quality photographic images."

New Packaging

The packaging format is also being announced with these new paper products. Colors and graphics are bold and eye-catching and text is easy to read, making Epson paper more easily identifiable by paper type, resolution and application.

"Our research showed that some people were confused by paper packaging in general," added Kratzberg. "Epson wants to stand out from the crowd to meet our customers' needs by providing clearly identifiable products."

For more information on EPSON and its products, call 800/GO-EPSON (800/463-7766) or visit its Web site at http://www.epson.com.

EPSON offers an extensive array of image capture, image output and portable storage products. For the OEM market, a variety of component and electronic devices is available.

Founded in 1975, Epson America Inc. is an affiliate of Seiko Epson Corp., a global manufacturer and supplier of high-quality technology products that meet customer demands for increased functionality, compactness, systems integration and energy efficiency. Epson America has headquarters in Torrance. -0-

Note: Brand or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

CONTACT: EPSON, Torrance

Nancy Napurski, 310/782-4380

Nancy_Napurski@ea.epson.com

or

Walt & Co.

Kellie DiNaro, 408/496-0900

kdinaro@walt.com