Jan William Drnek has been clutching a photo camera in his hands since the age of six and always dreamt of making large format prints. In view of the political circumstances and opportunities available in his country at the time, this dream remained an unquenchable desire for many years. He studied cyber-technology at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, where he specialized in control systems and devoted his later studies to the development of an apparatus that could follow eye movements. The knowledge he acquired in the realm of human eye-sight in those days, came in handy during the photo projects he engaged in later on.
By the mid 90s, Jan William was smitten by the large format printers that started to appear on the market. Together with a group of friends, he founded the HSW singmaking company, which not only became increasingly active in terms of sales, service and maintenance of such printers but also offered support in color management issues. He spent thousands of hours developing new printer profiles, which eventually led him to design a number of custom made printer profiles for the entire array of printing media used in the sign making production. In his toil, he relied on Gretag Macbeth and X-Rite measuring instruments. In order to provide factual support for marketing and sales, he created a number of printed color samplers which he substantiated with photos selected according to the nature of the customer’s needs. Between 2002 and 2007 he created many such samplers for HP and also took part in the Beta testing phase of its new print technologies. All that Jan William learned in the field of color management, large format printing and high resolution panoramic photography has come together in the realization of the interior design of HP’s newly opened demo center in Prague. He enjoys sharing the knowledge and experience he has gained throughout the years working in his field of expertise and thus, he continues to give presentations and deliver lectures at workshops and provides individual training in areas described above.