Many businesses try to take on the marketing friendly label of family business, but few can match the credentials of the Hogan family’s business, Hogan Print.
Founded in 1964 by typesetter Ray Hogan and his sons David and Geoffrey, the company is now in the capable hands of the third generation of Hogans, with all four of Ray’s grandsons involved in the business.
Peter Hogan controls finance and management, Anthony takes care of prepress operations, while Tim’s expertise in printing and Mark’s experience in post press and finishing mean that every facet of the company’s operations is indelibly stamped with the long-established Hogan penchant for craftsmanship and service.
Originally an offset company, Hogan Print, based at Artarmon on Sydney's north shore, has diversified into every facet of print production, including design and prepress, both offset and digital print production and a broad range of finishing processes for completing just about any printed product request.
“We originally printed only offset on our Heidelberg presses, but about six years ago we bought an Indigo digital press to enter the digital market,” said Peter Hogan. “We upgraded our original Indigo about eight months ago for an Indigo 5600.”
Digital print now accounts for about one-third of the company’s print output. For many clients, the decision to go digital or offset is left to the Hogans and is based on the most effective method for producing the required job. Factors in those decisions include deadlines, run lengths and unique parameters for each job. Print quality is almost never a consideration because the difference between the two processes is negligible, said Peter, although the company will accommodate requests from clients.
A regular Hogan print client, a providore which specialises in boutique and bespoke produce lines, recently requested a series of labels for its new lines of coffee. The labels had to “jump off the shelf”, said the client, to attract customers to the client’s specialised coffee products. The packaging was to be black, and the labels had to be vibrant and attractive, using a premium quality material to illustrate the coffee products’ unique qualities.
Hogan Print chose to use AveryPro’s new Antique White Laid (Idp) Permanent label stock for this job, based on several reasons, said Peter Hogan. AveryPro’s Antique White Laid Permanent stock is a 90gsm narrow-ribbed laid paper with a subtle, slightly off-white colour. It is a high-quality label paper made from white high density kraft paper with excellent lay flat properties, and has been designed for bottle, jar and tin labels. It boasts high wet strength and resistance to alkali, and is also mould proof.
“We’d recently received an AveryPro sample pack, and we were confident that the Antique White Laid product was a great choice for this particular job. We knew immediately it would be useful when we first saw it. It has a very upmarket look and feel to it, with its slight ribbing texture and off-white or ‘antique’ colour. It provided a perfect kind of quality feel and ambience, which is what the customer was looking for,” said Peter.
“The label design also relied on the substrate to ‘lift’ it so it really stood out. The Avery label did a great job of that.”
Hogan Print ran the label print job through its Indigo 5600 press, which performed faultlessly with the substrate. “It printed perfectly the first time,” said Peter. “There were no problems whatsoever. The Antique White Laid Permanent stock is approved for printing on Indigo digital presses, so it was a seamless process.”
For this specialised print run, Hogan Print used HP’s IndiChrome seven-colour process on the Indigo 5600, in which a greater range of true Pantone colours can be achieved. “The artwork was designed in vibrant PMS colours, and the use of the IndiChrome print method enabled us to accurately reproduce these colours,” said Peter.
The customer was delighted with the finished label and its impact on the products’ packaging. Its quality and ability to give the design “punch” delivered a striking product that would stand out on shop shelves.
The result, Peter added, is nothing less than outstanding for the client. It also gave Hogan Print another opportunity to explore its digital press’s unique capabilities, too much approval from the whole Hogan Print team. “This label stock, and its ability to print so easily and deliver a high quality final product, means we have new opportunities to talk to some of our customers about their print products. I’m sure this will be very popular.”
The AveryPro range of label products offers label stocks that have been designed and manufactured specifically for printing on digital presses.
Avery Products, a division of CCL Industries, is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of self-adhesive printable labels and labelling software.
For more information visit www.averyproducts.com.au/averypro/