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PVCA is describing the ACCC's decision to give AusPost the green light for inflation-busting price hikes as “baffling” and “rewarding AusPost failures”, and is predicting the rises will have a “substantial impact” on the print and mail industry. Read more
Foot & Playsted has been crowned kings of Tasmanian print, taking out the Print Grand Diemen 2019 best of show award for the Amalgamation and Harmony book, winning the title at a glittering creative industries evening in Hobart.
Visy is selling its Visy Cartons business to long term partner SIG for $70m, with SIG set to use the business to drive growth across the Asia Pacific.
Oji Fibre Solutions is investing around $100m in a new automated cardboard box plant development in Christchurch, which will come with the latest printing technology.
Digital flexible packaging operation ePac is investing some US$100m with HP for a new fleet of 24 HP Indigo 20000 digital presses, with which it it will serve its rapidly growing number of customers with on-demand, short-run packaging.
Private equity fund Mercury Capital is reportedly in “advanced talks” to buy the country’s biggest magazine publisher Bauer Media from its German owners.
Staff at Naresh Gulati’s collapsed trade finishing house The Bindery have been left owed thousands of dollars in entitlements, as promised redundancy payments have failed to materialise, and with the company now in liquidation.
Finsbury Green CEO Peter Orel confirms most of the staff working for Waratah when it went into administration are making the move to Finsbury, with former CEO Brett Chalmers also transferring over.
The country's biggest franchise print operation Snap is appointing a new CEO, with Richard Thame set to get behind the desk on 16 December.
Wide format and 3D solutions systems supplier Roland DG is giving the trade an early Christmas present in a deal that lets printers have its equipment now, but with nothing to pay until the new year.
Chili_publish will launch version 6.0 of its Chili_publisher software before the end of the year, promising turbo-charged speed, and spot colour reproduction from CMYK.
Print broker Pulse Print Solutions is causing industry ire with an online post promoting a job it is producing for a local business – which is being printed in China.
Print & Visual Communication Association (PVCA) and Visual Connections confirm that the LIA Biennial Award Recipients from 2017 and 2019 have received their prize money, and will shortly be making travel plans for the trip of a lifetime from Adelaide to Düsseldorf for drupa 2020.
Heidelberg subsidiary Gallus has sold its 100th Labelmaster flexo printing press, two years after the platform was launched at that year's Labelexpo, making it the fastest-selling Gallus press in history.
Revolution Print in Ballarat has become the first printer in the country to trial Konica Minolta’s AIRe Lens augmented reality glasses for remote diagnostic input and service support.
The wave of closures and consolidations impacting the Victoria print industry in the last two weeks has claimed one of Melbourne's biggest printers, with Waratah Group in external administration and essentially finished. Rival printer Finsbury Green has bought the customer list, and will be bringing a substantial number of the 170 staff over.
Australia Post has opened the biggest mail sorting facility in the Southern Hemisphere, as new research finds global shipping volume is set to hit 200 billion parcels by 2025.
The long running dispute between Fuji Xerox joint owners Fujifilm and Xerox, which erupted last year over a proposed $6bn merger, has ended with the two companies agreeing a way forward.
It will be the end of an era at Geoscience Australia next month as the government agency ends its production of printed large-scale topographic maps and moves to digital.
More than 550,000 people have downloaded NSW’s new digital driver licence (DDL) – but the state government insists it will not replace printed cards.
Victorian trade forms and systems printer Gippsland Trade Printers has been sold to Lamson Paragon Group.
Perth-based Quality Press is installing a KBA ten-colour B1 perfector, with managing director Atish Shah saying the company is “gearing up for the future”.
The latest Move figures from the OMA show out of home audiences increased for the ninth year in a row, up by 2.4 per cent in 2019.
Printers in Melbourne are rushing to get their work out of trade finishing house The Bindery, with its owner Naresh Gulati bolting the doors shut and closing the business without warning.
Marvel Bookbinding owner Wayne Eastaugh says his company is ready and able to take on jobs that had been sent or are due to be sent to the now-defunct Bindery.
Australian private equity firm Quadrant will acquire outdoor media group QMS for $570m, with printers Omnigraphics, BMG and MMT set for new owners.
Next year’s National Print Awards event will be held on July 31, with the state-based PICAs set to take place during April and May. The NPAs will presented in partnership with Media Super.
Mutoh’s new generation MS41 EcoSolvent ink has been Greenguard Gold certified for Wallcovering – the highest-level environmental category possible.
Some 100 printers and politicians mixed and mingled at the second Print2Parliament event held in the Mural Hall of Parliament House, with printers pressing their case for government support in five key categories.
Adelaide's Swift Signs is in voluntary administration, as supplier Ramair Packaging seeks a winding up order against an unpaid debt from the company.
The new Océ Colorado 1650 roll-to-roll wide-format production printer is about to roll out across Australia following its debut at PrintEx, where it won a Print21 Hot Pick.
Agfa has introduced its new Eclipse process-free printing plate, which it bills as being just as easy to use as a conventional plate.
In a major Melbourne shake-up Southern Colour is buying Naresh Gulati’s Rooster IMC, creating one of the country’s biggest print businesses. The deal is essentially an asset sale.
The LIA has celebrated International Print Day with events in Sydney and Brisbane, where members could network and learn about new innovations in print.
The country’s biggest two printers Ovato and IVE are facing a future where the country’s two biggest publishers are just one, as Bauer Media is spending $40m to buy Pacific Magazines.
Sydney based printer Momento Pro has been crowned the king of global print, winning the 2019 US Premier Print Awards James H Mayes Jr Memorial Best of Show prize.
Security printing operation Note Printing Australia has installed a new B2 KBA Rapida 76 eight colour perfector at its Craigieburn factory.
Bobst is launching the Vision CI flexo press, which it says is designed to deliver the most efficient performance for all production lengths on a wide range of substrates.
Leading ANZ graphic arts industry supplier Currie Group is investing into the 3D printing sector, with a partnership equity agreement in 3D solutions developer EVOK3D.
Direct mail and fulfilment house Senses Direct has gone under, four months after losing its three-year battle with publishing giant Sensis over the trademark on its name.
Controversial Melbourne print business Maverick Print Group has changed its name to MVP Print.
Runaway Australian online design success story Canva has just raised an extra $85m to boost its growth, valuing the six-year-old business at a supersonic $3.2bn.
Australia's Top 100 Food & Drink Companies report is about to be published, and for printers engaged in packaging and labelling for food and beverage products it is one of the must-read publications of the year.
Leading inkjet head developer Xaar is mothballing its thin film piezo printhead development, and has seen its senior execs and 100 staff go, as the company racked up a £50m ($90m) loss.
Print business broker Richard Rasmussen is looking for businesses to sell, with just three currently on his books.
Three models of the Roland DG TrueVIS series wide-format inkjet printer cutters have earned top honours in three categories of the 2020 Pick Awards from Keypoint Intelligence’s Buyers Laboratory.
One of Heidelberg's new non-print products, the Wallbox Home Eco home charging unit for electric cars, has just won the German equivalent of the NRMA's top award.
Jet Technologies and Screen GP are celebrating 10 years of partnership success as the two companies gear up for 2020 with new Screen products.
Melbourne commercial business Printgraphics Printgreen has installed its second Komori B1 long perfector, and is throwing its doors open to the market with an Open Week from Monday.
Venerable Hobart printing house Monotone Art Printers has invested in a suite of new productivity-boosting Horizon finishing equipment from Currie Group.
Meltdown in Melbourne continues, with longstanding craft bookbinding house Irwin & McLaren closing its business - 150 years after first opening its doors.
The artefacts at the Melbourne Museum of Print are being auctioned off – but the Museum's owner is not happy. Print21 editor-at-large Patrick Howard goes behind the scenes to get the real story.
Industry associations Old Friends and the LIA are asking printers to contribute to a new archive of business cards.
The Fespa organiser says visitors to the wide format Global Print Expo 2020 in Madrid next March will discover a content-rich event, including a programme of features “designed to inform and inspire in equal measure”.
Fresh from its conscious uncoupling with Fujifilm, imaging giant Xerox is making an audacious bid to buy HP, slapping a US$33bn cash and shares bid on the table in New York.
Kodak has launched its call for entries for its sixth Sonora Plate Green Leaf awards, which are designed to celebrate print service providers that are leading the way in adopting sustainable printing practices.
Wide format solutions supplier Starleaton is running an open house for the next two weeks centred on the EFI Pro 16h LED hybrid printer, which it calls “the ultimate growth tool”.
EFI is launching PackCentral, an online web-to-pack solution, which it says will enable packaging converters to digitally transform their businesses and grow profitability through new revenue streams and reduced sales costs.
With digital introducing new methods of printing, old deinking techniques for paper recycling are unable to keep up and must evolve to meet the times, writes Laurel Brunner.
Kodak is shifting its Prinergy workflow into the cloud with the launch of its Prinergy Virtual Machine Environment (VME) with Managed Services, which will see Kodak itself host customers’ virtualised Prinergy software.
Roland DG subsidiary DG Shape has released its latest LD-300 Laser Decorator, which it says goes beyond foil decoration on soft plastics to include larger three-dimensional items and direct imprinting on natural leather.
In further proof that there is still money in print, the world’s most expensive Pokémon card has sold at auction for almost $300,000.
A new cooperative for green printing has been set up for sheet fed offset printing companies, calling itself Print the Change, and it wants to attract organisations keen to turn themselves into more environmentally friendly outfits, writes Laurel Brunner.
Folding carton printing company Arkay Packaging in Virginia has signed a contract for a Heidelberg Primefire 106, with the company saying it wants to “expand its position as a technological leader in the market for luxury packaging”.
Agfa will show how inkjet printing lends itself to integration in a wide variety of highly demanding industrial production environments at a show in Germany next month.
Print and packaging research agency Smithers says the increased aversion to plastic packaging will create multiple new opportunities in foodservice packaging.
HP has committed US$200m over the next five years to develop water-based ink technology for digital corrugated and textile printing.
Digital print solutions developer Konica Minolta is making its first foray into the high-volume toner printing segment with the launch of the new 140ppm C14000 colour printer.
Technology developer Epson is launching four new printers, including its first 12-colour graphic arts systems, and two dye-sub printers for the fast-growing digital textile market.
First ever 12-colour printer from the industry’s colour inkjet specialists covers 99 per cent of the Pantone gamut, with increased speed and lower running costs.
The world’s biggest trade show drupa will now be represented in Australia by Robert and Rosyln Laing and their company Messe Reps.
Sydney-based wide-format printer and display supplier ADI Displays has been hit with a cyber security breach affecting more than 1000 of its customers.
Print research agency Smithers is forecasting that in 2029 the global digital print market will be more than double the 2014 size, with an average CAGR of 5.3 per cent.
EFI is hosting a webinar aa 9am on Monday which will look at the experience of Melbourne business Impact Digital's online activity.
A research project at Griffith University has put out a call for printers to share their strategies for innovation.
Current Bauer Media commercial director Paul Gardiner is to succeed Simon Ellis as managing director of Ovato’s New Zealand operations. Gardiner takes over at a testing time with margins under pressure.
Mutoh Australia has appointed Melbourne-based Total Image Supplies as a new dealer across the full range of Mutoh printers.
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