Novafeltria, in the province of Rimini and a stone's throw from San Marino. Gian was founded in this area in 2005 by Gbc, a company that produced photo albums. Individual fates that mirror the great disruption that the photographic development industry underwent in those years, swept away by the advent of digital and thus forced to (hurriedly) start over. The new company, named after Angela Giardi (one of the partners along with Luca Mancini and Marco Rossi), seized the potential offered by sublimation technology, which was able to open the door to 3D after decades of two-dimensional printing on paper. It is a b2b business, supplying presses and dye-sublimation printers to photography studios and photo labs, and carefully selecting items both on the domestic market (especially for textiles and puzzles) and in China.

In fact, Gian imports plain cups and other ceramic products from the People's Republic, the quality of which is certified by the Giordano Institute in Bellaria. The variety of products offered is Gian's real asset; in fact, almost from the very beginning, the Romagna-based company has been able to count on more than 1,000 products in its catalogue.

Luca Mancini explains “moving forward, however, there was a certain saturation of the photographic market; to grow, we had to increasingly move into the area of sublimation for the promotional and gadget market. As a result, we have become distributors of prestigious brands such as Epson for sublimation and Dtg printers, as well as Transmatic (the Ferrari of automatic presses) and Chromaluxe, manufacturer of top-quality aluminium frames and supports for sublimation”.

In the last two years, then, Gian has opened up to another market: that of souvenirs, revived after the long periods of forced immobility during lockdowns. With its Souvenir store brand, the Romagna-based company now works all over Italy (and maybe one day in the near future abroad as well), backed by a network of kiosks and shops with a very high reputation - one among them, Algani in Milan's Piazza della Scala - selling its mugs, soft toys, shoppers, bibs, along with a long series of other articles.

The megatrend of sustainability has expanded Gian's portfolio of products including water bottles, aluminium thermal bottles, etc., but has not forced the company to make any major changes or to convert, since the physical characteristics of plastic are not compatible with the thermo-transfer technique, its workhorse.

The challenge for the future? Luca Mancini says, “Dtf can be applied on cotton, nylon, polyester, tnt, all materials that previously required multiple techniques. For the past year and a half or two this system has been disrupting the market, with Asian-made machines and Epson printheads”. Needless to say, Gian imports and sells one, the Dtf Line I - 3200. On the other hand, at the age of eighteen the desire for new experiences is strong.