GJS and Brother have launched a new BIA Excellence in Digital Decorating Award for TAFE NSW Cert II students, and Brother will pay the TAFE tuition fees for a year for the student that wins it.

Cloud-based print management solutions printIQ has appointed John Alden as its new CEO. Alden comes with years of experience in the print and software industries.

Textiles and garment printing are always a feature of Visual Impact, visitors interested in this area have been able to print their own t-shirt at the Velflex One Stop Transfer Shop.

Epson will show a sample of its upcoming new SC-F2260 direct-to-garment and direct-to-film printer at Visual Impact, on stand C12, which it says comes with faster performance and finer detail capability.

The proposed deal by papermaking giant Sappi to reduce its exposure to graphic arts papers, by selling three of its mills to p/e fund Aurelius in a $400m deal, collapsed at the 11th hour.

Press manufacturing giant Koenig & Bauer is targeting further growth this year, following a 6.3 per cent rise in group revenue to €1.186bn for 2022, with sheetfed revenues up by 5 per cent.

WA-based Daytone Printing is in voluntary liquidation, some 25 years after the general commercial printer, which ran with offset and digital presses, was founded.

Canon Australia is launching the imagePrograf TC-20M, a four-colour CMYK, large format, desktop printer, with an A4 flatbed scanner. Canon says even first-time users can easily create large format prints.

Printers who were buying plates, software, and a raft of other offset necessities from Agfa, will now be buying them from ECO3, the new brand for the newly independent business.

Agfa’s offset business – which includes plates – is under new ownership as from today, with a new brand to be launched tomorrow, but it is business as usual for ANZ customers. Under the new owners it will be making major investments in software development.

Inkjet press developer Kyocera has stated its intentions to become a major player in the commercial market, by acquiring French inkjet web developer Nixka.

In its first major acquisition since it was spun out of EFI, eProductivity Software has acquired MIS developer Tharstern – which has a significant ANZ customer base – and branded it as ePS Tharstern

Canon Australia has launched the imagePress V900 series digital colour print system, which it says sets new standards in cut-sheet toner productivity, aiming it at both commercial and inplant operations.

Epson has released two new multifunction wide-format printers in its SureColor T-Series, which will produce posters and POP displays at speeds of 27sqm an hour, with CAD and tech drawings at 130sqm.

Well-liked and much respected local industry notable, John Coote, passed away at the age of 76, after a pioneering print career which took Australian prepress into a new era.

The Print and Visual Communication Association is forming a Mail Industry Coalition, to develop a united industry response to the Government Consultation into modernising Australia’s postal service. In a marked change of approach, the new federal minister for communications, Michelle Rowland, has already written to PVCA seeking its submission.