Industry

The ‘boom’ of digital print is deafening while sheetfed offset is meekly considered a ‘bust’ – but is it necessarily so? A survey found that of the world’s 49,152 billion A4 pages printed in 2012, offset accounted for 76%. Alison Stieven-Taylor reports.

NZME's The New Zealand Herald has won the top prize at the PANPA 2015 Newspaper of the Year ceremony in Sydney, taking out the national/metro category. Yandina Print Centre won the Print Centre of the Year award.

We moan about climate change when we see weather related catastrophies in the media but too rarely think about changing our behaviour in response, says industry consultant Laurel Brunner.

The HP users group’s Asia conference, running for two days at the Big Site exhibition centre in Tokyo, has attracted over 20 Australian industry professionals to join hundreds more from the region to forge collaborative networks.

Epson

BJ Ball continues to sponsor the Mohawk competition as others fade away, heartened by good turnouts of designers in Melbourne and in Sydney this week. The bi-annual competition to find the best in print design is proving its worth, attracting increased entries from the design community.

The Swiss manufacturer exercised its option to buy the remaining shares in the mid-to-narrow web press maker, renaming the business as Bobst Firenze. No immediate change is expected in the local market with Melbourne-based Gulman Engineering continuing to represent the company.

The Australia Post kerfuffle dives right to the heart of two factors: the relevance of postal services in this digital age and also the Government’s obligations to the nation. Andy McCourt does some deep research on the matters.

Starleaton Digital Solutions is a family-owned supplier mixing it successfully with the big boys in wide-format consumables and specialised hardware. Ben Eaton spoke with Print21 magazine about what the industry can expect from this rising star.


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The GJS roadshow returns home to present its latest print technology in Sydney on Saturday after travelling to South Australia, Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania over the past month. The event will also launch the new Sawgrass Virtuoso desktop sublimation printers.

DES is showcasing a new Seiko printer, ColorPainter H3-104s, on its stand at the Melbourne Visual Impact show Sept 17-19. The new model is the widest inkjet printer among SIIT’s ColorPainter product line.

A decision to buy a Konica Minolta C8000 digital printer at Printex produced a dramatic lift in business at family-run Adelaide printer Arte Grafica. “Demand just skyrocketed...the volume of work got so big that we needed to upgrade again," said manager Tony Cavaiuolo.

OKI will launch a brand new LED laser printer at Labelexpo Europe 2015. To be demonstrated live at the OKI Europe stand (Hall 9, stand C24) the new printer fills a gap in the market that will open new opportunities and revenue streams for high street print shops and small print houses.

Paintings by Canon

Canon unveiled technology that can reproduce famous oil paintings, allowing viewers to experience the reproduced work while the original art remains in storage. Canon plans to expand the technology into advertising signage, product packaging and wallpaper.

A shift in the corporate culture of HP delivers a distinctive Australian flavour to the top management that can only benefit the local industry.

The mailing industry and postal unions are stepping up campaigns against Australia Post’s plan to increase rates for letters and bulk mail. A protest rally was held outside Australia Post headquarters in Melbourne and union officials will travel to Canberra to lobby the federal government.