Print Is Having a Moment. Most People Are Wasting It.

Coby: Andy, you want to get a drink?

Andy: Let’s go.

Coby: Let’s do it.

Nicole: Hi, it’s producer Nicole Denson. Today we’re talking with Andy Selcho, owner of Nuance Inc., a print, signage, and apparel shop in Sandy, Utah built for brands that want to be remembered. Andy launched Nuance Ink. in 2026 after more than two decades in printing. That includes nearly 11 years as president of Alpha Graphics431, a multimillion-dollar marketing and communications company in the Salt Lake area.

Nicole: He’s a craftsman at heart. He loves blending art, business and relationships into work that helps people communicate with confidence. And he’s got a lot of wisdom to share about building something that lasts. Let’s get into it.

Coby: Here we go.

Andy: Come. Let’s go.

Coby: I’m super, super stoked. I had no idea that this even existed. Like, I’m so excited.

Andy: I didn’t either until, like, a couple weeks ago.

Coby: How did you find out about it?

Andy: We were driving by it. My son was like, turn left at the milkshake factory. I was like, the what?

Coby: They have a factory for those? No.

Coby: All right, man. So talk to me. Talk to me. Guess what’s new.

Andy: Everything mean? Personal life’s crazy. Just sent my youngest on a mission.

Coby: Nice. And to where?

Andy: It’s going? To Alabama.

Coby: Okay. Yep. So, Alabama.

Andy: Alabama. Foreign stateside. We call it. And, Yeah. So my wife and I are just trying to figure out what exactly life looks like now. And just seeing what comes next.

Coby: Cool. I know that there’s something else that’s big on the horizon.

Andy: Big change with the business.

Coby: Talk to me.

Andy: And, we have been part of a franchise network for 30 years. Okay. And, we are now Nuance Inc..

Coby: From where?

Andy: From alpha graphic.

Coby: From alpha graphics. So you are an alpha graphics franchise? E

Andy:

Coby: And you rebranded. You went out on your own, rebranded as Nuance Inc., and it’s actually nuance dot ink for the web address. Right? Okay.

Andy: And ink with a k. Yeah.

Coby: And talk to me about why you did that. First, how long have you been an Alpha Graphics franchisee?

Andy: So technically, I’ve been ten years. Okay. 30 years ago, my dad, signed a franchise agreement.

Coby: Okay. And, bits, bytes and electrons thrown that in for you, Steve.

Andy: Yeah. And, they taught him the printing business and, formed a lot of great relationships. Learned a lot. And, but, you know, one of the, one of my favorite, lyrics, from a band is nothing really ever stays the same. Yeah. And, just got to a point where, you know, there are a lot of good reasons to stay with the franchise and a lot of good reasons.

Andy: Not to. And at the end of the day, decided wanted to be authentic. And, for my own brand and. Yeah. And go on my own.

Coby: So, what are the principal differences between nuance Inc. as your brand and really your business and alpha graphics as and you as an alpha graphics franchisor or franchisee?

Andy: For me, it’s just like total control. So Alpha Graphics is a big brand. Over 250 locations worldwide. A lot of great people. But me personally, I have very little control over the direction of that brand.

Coby: Okay.

Andy: You know, with the people I do business with, I have a lot of control over that. But, that’s always with the alpha graphics name. That’s always seen within the context of the greater alpha graphics brand.

Coby: Yeah. Story. That’s really not yours. Correct.

Andy: Now I’ve got my own story. I’ve got full control and, it’s interesting, when my dad decided to join the franchise. He was, you know, becoming an entrepreneur. And but that was one of the reasons he chose to do that was himself as well as he wanted to be in control of his own destiny. So it’s kind of interesting that here I am all those years later, making a similar decision, with the family business that he started.

Coby: Yeah. We get.

Andy: That’s kind of cool.

Coby: Okay. So, yeah. It’s interesting. He goes and joins a franchise network as an entrepreneur, and you just take it one step further. So when you say that the Alpha graphics franchise, I’m story isn’t necessarily or that was I mean, my rephrasing of like you said, talk to me about how nuance is your story. Like what? What is nuance all about?

Andy: Nuance is all about leaning into print and making print work harder for people. And it’s authentic to me because, you know, here I was thinking how as a printer, like, it’s old, it’s kind of boring. It’s kind of geeky, like, how could I possibly be different than other printers out there? And, went through some exercises to really understand what it is about print that I love, the power that it has and what really makes it powerful and really feel like in that process, I found my authenticity.

Andy: Cool. As a business owner.

Coby: What makes print powerful?

Andy: Well, when it’s done right, when it’s done with intention.

Coby:

Andy: It makes people curious about things. Yeah. You know, prints tangible. It’s physical. It’s in the real world. And with everything that’s changing with marketing and the world that we live in. So many of those real experiences and real world things are going away. Yeah. But print is one of those things that it is real and does not go away.

Andy: You know, unless you throw it away.

Coby: But it engages more senses than just the eyes. And maybe sometimes the ears for sure. It engages tactile sense, which creates a whole different experience. Right? I like that. I like that a lot. So I’m interested. What does Steve. Your dad I know Steve. Steve’s that hero of mine. What does Steve think about this?

Andy: He’s excited. It’s a gutsy move. You know. Yeah. Things are going well as a franchisee. Why would you rock the boat? You know, if you don’t need to. That’s good. But ultimately, like, he’s really excited. When I purchased the business from him, he was really good about, like, letting me take the reins and take it the direction that I thought it needed to go.

Andy: Not perfect. As he says, but I think he likes, you know, watching what I’m doing with the business and, you know, loves the message behind nuance Inc..

Coby: Nice. So in the transition from alpha graphics to nuance, what? Like, what does that entail?

Andy: I mean, basically, I had to let go of everything, proprietary to alpha graphics. So all the branding, all the marks, even, like referring to myself as a former franchisee. Also like their technology. You know, they were in control of the website. So a lot of those things.

Coby: So all the infrastructure.

Andy: A lot of it. Yeah.

Coby: What about all of your equipment? You have a really deep capability set with the equipment that you’ve invested. Correct?

Andy: We do. So we on our own. We own our own equipment. Obviously our team, which we spent a lot of time like building a fantastic team of experts. You know, they’re obviously, you know, they’re part of my business. So I get to take them with me. We own our building, so we’re fortunate enough to be able to stay in our location.

Andy: Okay. Which is great.

Coby: So in your case, you are a franchisee. And, you know, really under the brand umbrella and maybe the infrastructure umbrella to a degree. But most of the infrastructure that you invested in was portable, and you were able to take with you. Yeah.

Andy: And that was one of the benefits of the agreement that we were under.

Coby:

Andy: Was being able to do that, you know, from what I’ve heard, like current agreements are different. But yeah, that was ultimately, you know, my dad said that’s one of the reasons he felt, comfortable signing the agreement to begin with, because he was building a business that he ultimately owned.

Coby: Yeah.

Andy: A good portion of, you know, if the day came that he needed, you know, or decided to take it a different direction.

Coby: Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit about, print in general. I mean, you mentioned a little bit before that, you know, print could be boring. You see, print is boring. I never have personally. And, you know, my, like, creative partner, you know, very well, Jared, like, has never had that attitude at all. In fact, I’ve never heard anybody geek out, like he has about letter press and get cracking.

Coby: Deal. I mean, that guy is a nerd when it comes to stickers, and it’s the coolest thing ever. Print is experiencing a bit of a renaissance. I don’t know if everybody really understands that. Certainly in the marketing world. How are you seeing that renaissance take shape?

Andy: We’re seeing people go back to print where they used to not print, as much. It’s changing the technology of print is changing, which is what makes it fun, which is what can make people curious because you’re able to do things with print. Now that you couldn’t do 10 or 20 years ago.

Coby: Like what?

Andy: Like, right now we’re making these sticky logos, which are not stickers themselves. It’s actually ink. And the backside of the ink we’re able to make sticky so you can transfer that ink. Really basically a transfer.

Coby: So it’s almost like a, it’s like a PNG. It’s like a real world where it’s a clear background, right? Oh, that’s really cool.

Andy: Which is cool. You can put a.

Coby: Substrate film or anything like that. So it’s just like right there. Oh, and you can put almost anything. Yeah. Oh. So how new is that? I never even heard,

Andy: That’s probably a couple of years old. Yeah. This point, 2 or 3 years, maybe.

Coby: And you guys can do that in it.

Andy: For sure.

Coby: That’s cool. So how are people using that?

Andy: A lot of times, like, you want a brand something, but you only want a few of them. Yeah. So you can print a lot of your logos, and then stick them into pretty much whatever you want to.

Coby: So we got to do some of those for sweet tags.

Andy: You should.

Coby: Absolutely.

Andy: I mean, when we first started doing, we did our own, you know, our own logos and sticking them to, like, staplers and.

Coby: Cats.

Andy: You don’t stick to soft things, but,

Coby: Pretty much anything higher. Yeah, like.

Andy: Desks and staplers and drawers and, you know, and they stick, you know, they stick really well. They’re not for sure. Permanent. Always. But once you stick them, their stock should be we call them stickers. Oh, I like them better place.

Coby: Yeah, I like them. So, anything else? Like what other technology. I mean, I know that.

Andy: Just a lot of apparel decorating, which is, you know, why we’re looking to, you know, merge with an apparel decorating company.

Coby: Oh, really? I didn’t realize that’s on the horizon, too.

Andy: That’s. Yeah, I mean, that’s what we want to do.

Coby: Nice.

Andy: People are buying more apparel to go along with their brands and wear their brands, out with the evolving technology. And so, we’re really excited about that opportunity. So.

Coby: Andy has been a friend of mine and a mentor of mine. For how long?

Andy: 15 years.

Coby: 14 years? Oh, from before.

Andy: Finding out.

Coby: When I left. Started. So. And it’s 20. Yeah, over 15 years. And I worked for you and your dad, at what was alpha graphics, but no more. And I’ve been looking forward to this episode since we had conceived of this idea, over a year ago. I’ve been waiting for this episode. So in a real way, this is the moment I’ve been solving for.

Coby: So thank you. Where are we going today?

Andy: Going to milkshake factory.

Coby: And why milkshake factory?

Andy: I’m a sucker for milkshakes, and,

Coby: But you wouldn’t know because he’s a high school coach. He’s a football coach as well, and he’s a burly dude, so we have to talk about that. Okay, so sucker for objects.

Andy: And, ever since I heard there was a factory, I was like, I got to try it up online.

Coby: Like Sims workshop. Kind of the.

Andy: History. Kind of a family business. I guess great grandparents came from Greece. Like making chocolate and all that kind of stuff. And then, I guess they’ve perfected the milkshake and they’re going nationwide.

Coby: No way. Yeah. Really? And where are they at? In their growth right now?

Andy: I think they just started franchising recently. Not sure.

Coby: Oh, this would be super awesome. We would love to have one. What are we ordering? What are you ordering there?

Andy: I was really thinking about the Bananas Foster, but because I’m a sucker for Bananas Foster. But their history is in chocolate, so I’m going with the some kind of chocolate chocolatiers.

Coby: Like the Chocolate Bananas Foster. We had one of those. Our heads exploded. Okay, so I went. I’m gonna need help. I want you to make a recommendation. I love Bananas Foster. My mom used to make it with the brandy. It’s the only time we ever had brandy when I was a kid. And so I always get extra brandy.

Coby: Super awesome. And, Okay. So where is it? Where are we going?

Andy: It’s in Pleasant Grove.

Coby: Pleasant Grove? Okay. Somewhere.

Andy: So the locals call it.

Coby: Yeah, yeah. The cool kids that call me. All right, so we’re going to PG to the chocolate milkshake factory. And, you’re going to help me get what we’re going to get, right? What I should order. And on the way, we have an awful lot to talk about.

Andy: Sounds good.

Coby: All right. Or to you do it. All right. All right. Good.

Coby: Tell me about, this curiosity thing, because you mentioned that before. That print makes people curious, like, how does that affect how you. Well, first of all, do you have creative capabilities? For sure. Okay. So you have creatives, in-house designers in-house.

Andy: We do.

Coby:

Andy: But even our team like I, with the change to nuance, like there’s actually a process behind that too, you know, when we’re talking to somebody, if they’re like, how do we apply nuance to what we’re printing today? Like we have a process.

Coby: Nice.

Andy: And what I found is that process actually yields curiosity at the tail end of it. Cool. Because that’s always something I’ve struggled with. I’ve always admired people that are creative and can think, you know, so differently and do such cool things. And when, as we were, forming the nuance process, and started applying it, I was like, holy cow.

Andy: Like, this is what helps me be creative.

Coby: Looking for the, looking for maybe the second or the third look or something like that.

Andy: That and also like the process. Like the other thing about print being in the real world is it’s part of a process. It’s going to get handed to somebody or given to somebody or distributed at some point in time. And it’s part of a bigger process. So really looking at like, what does that what’s the role of that piece of print in the process?

Andy: What’s it supposed to do? What do people hope happens after somebody.

Coby: Decision making, like in the decision making cadence in an organization or something, or.

Andy: Even afterwards. Maybe it’s an onboarding process or like, you know, the first start of a longer experience with a brand.

Coby: So the print piece becomes a collaboration center in real time, in real space, as opposed to like it’s a Google doc for real life, right? Sure. Yeah. And it does lots of different it I’m here and you say it does lots of different has lots of different jobs depending on who has it at the moment.

Coby: Next question. Annie, what are you seeing that nobody else is seeing that you want them to see right now?

Andy: I think the biggest thing is just opportunity with print. A lot of people are spending money on print. But they’re just checking a box as opposed to really, like, being intentional and thinking or really understanding, like the power. That they’ve got in their hands with print. So, it’s a really I think a lot of people are missing the mark, you know, they know they want to catch people’s attention.

Andy: They want to get people’s. I. Uhhuh. But maybe they’re missing that a lot of things get people’s attention. Everybody’s clamoring for attention. What you really want is to keep the attention.

Coby: Oh, that’s big.

Andy: And the way to do that is to really engage them. So instead of just checking print off your box and saying it’s done, and it’s like everybody else knows, it’s like, how can you make it different? How can you make it, something that’s engaging.

Coby: And so how do you make print engaging.

Andy: Through our nuanced process?

Coby: Well, can you give me some insight into what the process is?

Andy: Yeah. So really, like, looking at, like we talked about, like what? What does this print for, what’s the bigger process around it? How is it getting distributed? Who is the audience like, who is it going to, And what do you hope happens next?

Coby: So can you print something for what it does and then what? You hope it happens next and then after that.

Andy: So one of the coolest things we did, this, you know, wedding cake company wanted some brochures. Okay. I was like, it’s kind of weird. Like, how do you use brochures? Well, come to find out. You know, they leave them at, venues, you know? So brides to be here visiting a venue, trying to decide where they want to have their wedding reception.

Andy: And, there’s brochures for all types of wedding related things. Yeah, and so, I hate just, like, a regular little trifold. Like, it’s really hard to make those, like, super powerful. And so we just started asking, what if, you know, with that, like, so it’s gone to brides. They’re probably early on in the wedding planning process and they’re out of venue.

Andy: It’s not like a lot of information that needs to go on a wedding cake brochure. And so we asked like, what if instead of just like a trifold brochure, like, what if we made it look more like a wedding cake, right? Different. Right? And then thinking more to the process, like, okay, well, what if our brides, they’re like, yeah, people probably taking notes on their phone.

Andy: But, you know, I love prints. I find a lot of people still use notepads. And so what if we made a brochure look like a wedding cake and be part of the wedding planning process? So more of a notepad.

Coby: Nice.

Andy: Brochure, as opposed to just, trifold brochure. Okay, so.

Coby: I get.

Andy: It. I like, all right.

Coby: Yeah.

Andy: Yeah. Different like people’s I, it looks a little bit like the product, so it’s got some layers to it. We staggered the edges. Nice. Put some different colors in there, like, you know, kind of like a wedding cake with the different layers. And then each page has a little bit about the company, but then just a lot of space for taking notes.

Coby: So there’s a reason to keep going back to it and keep going back to it and.

Andy: Hold it and.

Coby: Keep it around. Keep it around and touch and feel it. And to kind of remember it for sure. See. So yeah. So hence the name nuance because there’s dimension. Right. That keeps you learning something new each time or using it for a different reason each time you go back to the same piece.

Andy: Exactly.

Coby: It’s brilliant. Dude, I really like that. Let’s get some.

Andy: Milkshakes. Sounds good.

Coby: So what did you get again?

Andy: I got the, cookie something. It’s got brownies and, cookies and cream and fudge.

Coby: Well, we almost got in a wreck on the way home because I was looking the inside of this out while driving. I got the mint chocolate chip, and, it was amazing. I think I’m gonna go back, you know, and right away, it was really good. You guys, you need to go to the milkshake factory. They have one where you usually go up north.

Coby: In where? Holiday. We went to the Pleasant Grove one. And the guy who owns the Pleasant Grove one. It’s a franchise, is trying to open a couple more locations, he said. Right, I think so, yeah. Boy was working there really great. Dude, did you catch the kid’s name? And I didn’t, check it out.

Coby: Check it out and get the mint chocolate chip or the brownie fudge. Yeah. Good stuff. Thanks for all I needed. Thanks, cubby. All right, then, let’s get back to work.

Andy: Let’s do it.

Coby: All right.

Nicole: Thanks for coming along for the ride. If you enjoy Sweet Takes, be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Join us next time. There’s more sweetness ahead.