Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, August 4, 1995                   TAG: 9508040020
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IMAGE CENTER CLOSES

Bill Poff, president of Image Center, said Thursday that the decision to close, effective Tuesday, was strategic rather than the result of financial problems.

Image Center was one of the first bureaus providing graphic arts services such as color laser printing and desktop publishing for businesses across the country, Poff said. At one point, national contracts accounted for almost 80 percent of the company's work, he said. But similar bureaus cropped up across the nation, and soon customers could have 35mm slides and color laser prints made at shops in their own neighborhoods.

"The bottom line is, Image Center is located in too small a market with too regressive a business atmosphere to survive as a small business," Poff said. Operations like Image Center are better suited to cities that house corporate headquarters and thus have larger client bases, he said.

Image Center had a staff of 10 full- and part-time employees, Poff said. When it closed, about 2,000 clients remained on the company's customer list. Image Center is negotiating with several companies that want to buy the list, he said.

In April, Image Center sold a portion of its stock to a Maryland graphic arts company, EPI Communications. Each company operated independently, but EPI held an equity stake in Image Center. The alliance gave the Roanoke company access to EPI's more sophisticated facilities, which could produce multimedia and video presentations.

Poff declined to comment on the status of the relationship with EPI now that Image Center has closed. Calls to EPI's offices in Rockville, Md., were not returned.