Blue Star has signed a major deal to boost its production capabilities and will install four brand new Fuji Xerox iGen5 presses at its plants in Melbourne and Sydney. "Customers trust us to deliver the best print quality with the best speed to market and the iGen5 will further help us to deliver on this promise."

Opus chairman Richard Celarc has taken over the role of CEO from long-term chief Cliff Brigstocke, who will now focus on sales and marketing. Opus also announced it’s selling off its Singapore division COS Printers to major shareholder 1010 Printing in a deal worth $19m.

21-year old Melbourne photographer Jordan Madge and veteran journalist Stephen Dupont were the big winners in the Australian Photobook of the Year awards for 2015. Madge, a recent graduate, won the Self Published Award for his book titled Red Herring.

A massive B1-size press, the E106, will take centre stage on the Israeli-based manufacturer’s stand this year as the digital embellishing technology moves up to the top level. Scodix is represented in the local market by Currie Group.

Agfa Graphics underlined its commitment to print and print technology at a pre-drupa press conference in Belgium. "Print volumes...are still growing in packaging, wide-format and industrial applications, as well as in the emerging economies," said Agfa president Stefaan Vanhooren.

Tickets are now on sale for the biggest night in the NZ Print calendar, the Pride in Print Awards, to be held at Sky City in Auckland on 13 May. “Brush off those suits, pop on a frock and bring your dancing shoes." The annual PrintNZ Industry Forum 2016 will be held earlier on the same day.

Registrations have opened for the Women in Print 2016 Breakfast Series which will visit Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth in May. Guest speaker Charlie Caruso promises to challenge attendees to confront subliminal generational bias and inspire new business ideas.

'Perfect partners' Saueressig and Schawk! are jointly exhibiting under umbrella brand SGK - a Matthews International company - for the first time at this year's drupa. Both brands serve brand owners, printers and converters along the entire prepress process to product presentation at POS.

The PIAA board has reached an 'almost unanimous' decision on four nominees who will be invited to join the board as new directors. "Three of the four successful candidates were pretty much at the top of everyone's list," said acting president Kieran May.

The PIAA board is meeting in Sydney today to choose four new board members and also narrow down the list of candidates for the CEO position. "Some very influential and extremely capable people have put their hands up," said acting PIAA president Kieran May.

"Being a member of the PIAA reminds one very much of the old cliché about piloting an aircraft: hours of tedium punctuated by occasional moments of sheer terror." Associate member James Cryer considers how the national association can "climb out of the mess it currently finds itself in."

Konica Minolta Australia has launched a new Industrial Print business unit aimed at commercial production printing. “Konica Minolta realises the need to approach the market differently," said David Cascarino, KM's strategic account manager.

A panel of experts has completed judging in the 33rd annual National Print Awards after hundreds of entries from around Australia were evaluated over the past month. "Each year we're surprised again by how printers here in Australia continue to push the boundaries of quality and innovation."

Print technology developer EFI says its Win a Trip for Two to drupa 2016 competition is aimed a starting a conversation with printers about workflow management solutions. "Web to Print is still under-utilised," said Mark Fletcher, EFI APAC.

Roland DG Corporation was the leading wide-format printer manufacturer in the durable graphics market for 2015, according to new data from market researcher InfoTrends. Roland DG shipped more units than any other manufacturer in the 30-inch and up category.

If you are serious about improving your environmental impact, partnership may be the way to go. Toray and Seacourt Printing, a UK printing company, have been working together on a new waterless printing system to reduce Seacourt’s environmental impact.