Nike Hybrid RN Retail Display: Lettering UV Printed on Grey Marble
A display piece for a Nike retail store, carrying the name of the Nike Hybrid RN, Nike’s training shoe for people who run and lift. The block is two materials joined down the middle: white rubber flecked with colour on one side, grey marble on the other. Sun Studio UV printed the lettering on the stone.
Our part was the print, and only the print: the product name and a five-line tagline, in black, on the top face of the marble half. The swoosh is cut into the block, and the coloured flecks belong to the rubber.
Project snapshot
- Brand
- Nike
- Product named
- Nike Hybrid RN, a training shoe
- Application
- Retail store display piece
- Materials
- Grey marble, joined to a white rubber half
- Printed surface
- The top face of the marble half
- What we printed
- The product name and a five-line tagline
- Ink
- Black only
- Quantity
- One piece
- Machine
- Direct Color Systems UV44 flatbed
- When printed
- After the two halves were joined
- Printing service
- UV printing on stone
- Printed at
- Sun Studio, Al Quoz, Dubai
- Year
- 2026
The brief
Lettering on stone is usually cut in: engraved, sandblasted or routed. A cut letter has no colour of its own and is read by its shadow, which suits a large name and not a 20-word tagline set small on mid-grey stone.
This block already carried one cut mark, the swoosh across its front. The words were printed rather than cut.
Our approach
The colours in a UV ink set are transparent: printed on grey stone, they take on the grey. Black is the exception that matters. It is darker than anything it lands on, so on a mid-grey marble black lettering reads cleanly without a white layer under it.
So the job was one colour, black, printed straight onto the marble: no sticker, no plate and no cut vinyl letters applied over it.
Production detail
A flatbed prints whatever fits under its print head, not only flat sheets. This block arrived with its two halves already joined, and we printed it whole, as one piece, on our Direct Color Systems UV44, whose bed takes objects up to 30 cm tall. The rubber half passed under the heads with the rest; only the marble was printed.
An unpolished stone is not flat at the scale of a letter. This marble has a rough, open face, and the print follows it: close up, the grain and pale flecks of the stone show through the black, so the letters read as part of the surface rather than a film laid on top.
UV ink is cured by light the instant it lands, so it sets on the stone instead of soaking into it, and the edges of the smallest line of the tagline stay sharp.
The result
One block, one colour, and lettering that belongs to the stone rather than sitting on it: the Hybrid RN name and tagline in black on the marble, beside the rubber and the cut swoosh.
The same UV printing on stone suits any retail display in marble or stone: a plinth, a counter top or a shelf, one piece or a set for every store.
Have a stone or display piece to print?
Send a photo of the piece, its size and height, the stone and its finish, and the artwork. If you can, bring an offcut: stone is tested before a set is printed.
