About Us
In Color was orignally conceived by founder, A. Arthur Fisher, back in 1986, while he was attending UC Santa Barbara for a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering.
Having grown up in Silicon Valley, Mr. Fisher took his first programming class in 1978, and even from those early days, he began a life-long fascination with computer graphics. In the 1980s, as the first commercially available computers were just beginning to provide creative minds with tools to design and print their graphic concepts, Mr. Fisher began gravitating towards the print aspect of digital graphics. And by the time he graduated from college, he had started his own graphic design company.
After doing freelance graphics for a couple of years, Art decided to open In Color as a full-service, graphic design service bureau in downtown, Santa Barbara. Within a few years, In Color had a full-time staff of a dozen professionals, from graphic designers, to highly-skilled technicians to run In Color's comprehesive arry of digital graphics equipment. In that era, most of In Color's clients were design agencies and in-house design departments for larger corporations. Some of our clients included those in publishing, clothing, biomed and government, including Quicksilver, Roxy, Big Dogs Sportswear, UCSB, Delco, Raytheon, Balance Foods, ACMI Circon, The Independent, and Vandenberg Airforce Base.
During the 1990s, In Color had more than two thousand clients, over two hundred of which were active at any one given time. In 2000, Mr. Fisher sold In Color's operations to a start-up company, which he co-founded, who took the technology in house for very specific needs. And in 2001, Mr. Fisher left that company to revive In Color, this time as a smaller firm, dedicated to a few of his older customers.
Today, In Color still specializes in digial printing & publishing systems, but we have added photography, programming and network/server security to our range of core compentencies. Mr. Fisher has now been highly active in the concert industry for over fifteen years and serves as the “house” photographer for both the Santa Barbara Bowl and Arlington Theatre. He also has two large, coffee table books out, one about Santa Barbara's Old Spanish Days – Fiesta celebration, and another about Santa Barbara's Summer Solstice Celebration.
You can read more specifically about our background below.
Web Publishing & Web Applications
For a decade In Color has been at the forefront of Web Publishing. We hold a GIAC Certification with honors in Network Security and Network Systems (GSEC) from the world-renowned SANS Institute. Coupling this extensive understanding of the Internet with our background in visual communications, In Color has become a company highly effective at creating web publishing systems.
From our ability to accurately determine a company's web presence needs to its integration with ever-changing company information assets, In Color has a proven record of delivering secure, state-of-the-art web applications that not only work as required, they look great!
In Color began working with Content Management Systems back in 2004, when we designed our then version of incolor.net in the CMS-pioneering platform, Mambo. After the many of Mambo's developers defected to start the Joomla! platform, In Color followed them to this now rich and mature system 
(running this site). Though we still develop flat HTML/CSS websites, the Joomla! CMS and Fabrik Custom Application Builder have become our platforms of choice. We also have extensive experience with MediaWiki, WordPress, Grav and Virtuemart; we are fluent in HTML, CSS, MySQL, Apache and versed in PHP & JavaScript.
Digital Imaging & Digital Photography
We began our foray into Digital Imaging in the late 1980's after acquiring a pre-release copy of Adobe Photoshop 1.0. Even then, In Color was equipped with a 24-bit color Macintosh. By 1990 we had a flurry of workstations and scanners and had acquired our first Iris printer and Canon Color Laser Copier. With the acquisition of our Scitex Smart Scanner in 1994, In Color raised the bar with top-notch digital imaging professionals. Soon thereafter, we entered the field of professional digital photography. Since then In Color has been providing digital solutions for both studio and field photographers in association with graphic designers and fine art publishers.
We are a member of Canon Professional Services and shoot professionally for the Santa Barbara Bowl and Arlington Theatre. For three years principal, Mr. Fisher served as the official photographer for Old Spanish Days.
Don't forget to check out the award-winning photography at our sister company A. Arthur Fisher Photography.
Digital Printing
For over 20 years In Color has been a leader in the digital printing industry. We became one of the first companies to offer photographic-quality ink-jet prints and digital contract proofs with the installation of our first Iris printer. We have since owned, run and maintained dozens of different models of digital printers, from ink-jet giclée printers to high-speed, electrostatic, digital printing presses. Each machine was sate-of-the-art and paired with one or more raster image processors (RIPs) running on various platforms, including Scitex (Motorola and IBM), SGI and Apple.
Our output has been featured in newspapers, magazines, art books and fine art, as well as in small and large scale presentations from the boardroom to the trade show. We print runs as small as one, to as large as millions of copies. We can print everything from small labels to wall-sized murals. Some of our biggest images have spanned eight feet tall by fourteen feet wide on walls and in trade show booths. We've printed on mugs, pens and even parking permits. Even our extensive traditional press and lithography printing begins with digital imaging.
Graphic Design for Print
In Color began doing Graphic Design in the late 1980's after Apple Computer introduced the LaserWriter, the first professional quality printer within the reach of small businesses and equipped with the then brand new language, Adobe PostScript. After dabbling in the design of corporate identities, business cards, restaurant menus and resumes, Mr. Fisher soon began a push for digital color.
While staying on the cutting edge of digital design, In Color began acquiring the latest hardware and software while Mr. Fisher simultaneously became educated in the art of digital graphic arts. A new era was emerging, and digital graphics in print was slowly starting to surpass the quality and flexibility of the traditional methods. As companies like Scitex, Adobe and Apple continued raising the bar, In Color followed closely behind. We also began working closely with renown designers, P.R. firms and agencies. This kept us immersed in the latest design trends while offering technical assistance to many of the best designers of the 90's who were located in Southern California. We also watched, mimicked and augmented what they did. This was our hands-on education.
Jump forward another decade or two, and you have In Color today: a mature design agency with a plethora of experience, tools and a large portfolio. Over the years, we have done design for clients such as Roxy, Quicksilver, Banana Republic, Nederlander Concerts and The Santa Barbara Bowl. Our work has been published in dozens of mainstream media, including Rolling Stone, The LA Times, AAA Westways Magazine, Details, Readers Digest, The LA Weekly, Pollstar Magazine and many more.