Crewe Alexandra FC uses Mimaki 3DUJ-2207 3D printer to produce miniature of club captain for kit launch campaign

English League Two soccer club Crewe Alexandra FC integrated full-color 3D printing into its 2026-27 kit launch campaign by producing a life-like miniature of club captain Mickey Demetriou. The figurine was printed on a Mimaki 3DUJ-2207 full-color 3D printer, a machine that uses UV-curable inkjet technology to produce parts in over 10 million colors without post-processing painting. The miniature was used as a centerpiece in the club's promotional photography and social media content for the new kit reveal.

This application sits at the intersection of polymer vat photopolymerization-adjacent full-color printing and the sports marketing vertical, a niche but growing use case for AM. Mimaki's 3DUJ-2207 competes primarily with Stratasys' PolyJet line (J850 series) and 3D Systems' Figure 4 and MultiJet Printing platforms for full-color, high-fidelity prototyping and short-run promotional models. The significance here is not technical novelty — full-color inkjet 3D printing has existed for years — but rather the demonstration of AM as a production tool for marketing assets rather than functional parts. For service bureaus and in-house marketing teams, this validates that full-color AM can replace traditional sculpting and painting workflows for one-off promotional pieces, reducing lead time from weeks to days. The sports vertical, particularly European football clubs with large fan engagement budgets, represents a repeatable, low-volume demand stream that fits the economics of full-color polymer printing without requiring high throughput.

From a practical standpoint, this is a straightforward marketing deployment that does not change the competitive dynamics of the full-color 3D printing market. Mimaki's 3DUJ-2207 is a capable machine for this specific use case, but the addressable volume for sports club promotional miniatures is small and seasonal. The real test for Mimaki remains winning production contracts in dental modeling, figurine manufacturing, and architectural visualization — segments where the 3DUJ-2207's color accuracy and surface finish must compete on cost-per-part against incumbent PolyJet and MultiJet systems. For buyers evaluating full-color AM, this campaign is a reminder that the technology is production-ready for one-off and short-run promotional work, but the per-part economics still favor traditional methods above roughly 50 units.