Written by Gareth Ward | 31 January 2012

Oxford University Press (OUP) recently opened its doors to two local schools as part of the PrintIT! twinning scheme to showcase the print industry to the younger generation.

The visit which had two elements was part of the Proskills PrintIT! programme which aims to raise awareness and encourage students to consider careers in the printing and paper industries. The programme is hugely supported by industry and sponsored by DS Smith, GVMC and Heidelberg, to name a few, and links with local industry employers to provide a real experience for students.

Students participated in a tour of the printing and finishing areas at the printing division of Oxford University Press, while the second part of the visit took the students to Oxford University Press print museum. Students were able to tour the museum with a curator and were also given a graphic design task where they were allowed to create their own business cards which were printed so they could take home with them.

Overall, pupils have found the visit interesting and well planned out with the designing of business cards being exceptionally well received. One pupil said the visit gave them a better understanding of the printing industry and linked jobs while another enjoyed finding out the history and how the industry has evolved and improved.
www.printit.org.uk

Written by Gareth Ward | 20 January 2012

The Ink Shop is a traditional Scottish commercial print business based in Cumbernauld, specialising in fast turnaround high quality printing and servicing a multitude of customers from small to medium sized companies through to multinational and public sector work.

Today, managing director Stuart Mason (pictured above) is leading the company into new, more dynamic markets. “The market place is changing,” he says. “And as a company we have to change with it if we are to remain at the forefront of technology. We’ve always been a traditional litho house, and old habits tend to die hard. Even though we have always had an element of digital printing, we always regarded it – wrongly, I might add – as the poor relation.”

Mr Mason readily admits that the digital elements of his company had, until recently, been underutilised, but a visit to a Xerox open house event was to change his mind about digital printing forever.

“The machine we originally went to see turned out to be uninspiring,” he says. “But while we were there we wandered off into another room and quite literally discovered the Xerox Color Press 1000. We almost had to demand that Xerox provide us with a demo – and I am glad we were so persistent because we were utterly amazed by the quality that this machine could achieve. The colours were vibrant and punchy, as if true litho prints were coming from this machine. It was absolutely outstanding.”

Mr Mason knew he had to have this machine, but with his budget literally in tatters it was going to be a big step.

“We had a fixed budget in mind,” he says, “but that was for the machine we were no longer interested in! We knew we now had to triple it if we wanted to step up to the Xerox Colour Press 1000. It was going to be a big investment for us, and we also realised that we needed to approach the right company to supply it because we wanted to get the deal absolutely nailed right from the outset.”

The company it turned to was Danwood because, says Mason “We didn’t want a company that was just going to supply the equipment; we wanted to work with a company that was going to be a partner to us throughout the entire relationship. Danwood provided us with impartial advice and guided us through the whole process. They showed us what equipment we should be using, and more importantly helped us to consider developing our business into new sectors that had never crossed our mind.”

In addition to the Xerox Colour Press 1000, The Ink Shop has also invested in a Presstek 52DI UV digital press along with a Duplo 500 and a range of Morgana finishing equipment including CardXtra Plus, UV coater and guillotines. According to Mason, with all of its recent investments in digital production solutions, the Ink Shop is now one of the best equipped printers in the country.

Following this, his boldest move yet was to move the commercial printing business into a retail environment with a pop up shop in the middle of an upmarket, busy shopping arcade in Central Glasgow to supply the b2c sector with photo canvases, photo books, as well as commercial printing.

“We’re now located in one of the biggest shopping centres in Glasgow with commercial printing as well as offering business to consumer products such as photo books, canvases, calendars and promotional items. But significantly, we are there with commercial printing. We are now bringing print to business people who usually buy print when they are at work, but because they are out shopping and they see us, they take the time to stop and chat with us because it catches them off their guard. We have also found that many of these people with whom we are doing new business wouldn’t have given us the time of day during normal business hours! It is guerrilla marketing at its very finest,” he says.

www.theinkshop.biz

www.danwood.co.uk

Written by Gareth Ward | 20 December 2011

Litho press giant Heidelberg is taking a watching brief over how it moves into wide format inkjet printing. It currently has a distribution deal with Efi for the North American market, but has nothing to show to customers elsewhere in the world despite a growing demand from printers to offer a one stop shop service covering display print as well as sheetfed litho.

Heidelberg is starting to provide customers with a web to print tool which it says can be useful for attracting new types of business like photobooks, business cards and greetings cards directly from consumers. Adding a banner or poster printing service would appear a logical extension to this.

Board member Marcel Kiessling (pictured) says: “We distribute Efi’s Vutek products in North America and we want to see how that develops over the next couple of months. We may decide to roll that deal out over other parts of the world.

“By integrating Vutek into our Prinect production network and colour management we can achieve a better colour accuracy and repeatability from the inkjet machines.”
However, Heidelberg may be looking also an entry level device. This is because it has had success with the Ricoh production quality electrophotographic presses. Its machines are considerably less expensive than top of the range digital printing machines from Xerox, Kodak and HP, but offer similar levels of quality for printers that want to minimise their investment costs in a new sector.

It would be no surprise if Heidelberg were to repeat this approach with a relatively low cost wide format inkjet machine that offered very high quality printing.
www.heidelberg.com

Written by Gareth Ward | 09 December 2011

German press manufacturer Heidelberg has stormed into an early pole position with a major presence at Ipex 2014, securing the dominant position in the exhibition's offset litho and ancillary sector.

Gerard Heanue (pictured), managing director of Heidelberg UK says: "The scale of our commitment to Ipex 2014 is testimony to our wholehearted support for the exhibition's relocation to London.  The timing of the decision, which comes significantly earlier than for previous Ipex editions, is further evidence of our excitement and enthusiasm."

Ipex will take place at London's ExCeL international exhibition and conference centre from 26th March to 2nd April 2014.

www.uk.heidelberg.com