Printing Industries and LIA promote ISO standards

An announcement later this month is expected to confirm rumours that a specialist body is to be set up in Australia linked to the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) for the development and implementation of ISO standards in the Australian printing industry.

Discussions are underway between the Printing Industries and the Lithographic Institute of Australia (LIA).

Both organisations have confirmed their interest in the project and that announcements of their intentions will be made in Melbourne at the LIA's 19th Biennial Conference on 18 October and simultaneously in Sydney and Melbourne on 19 October during the respective Printing Industries' NSW Business Excellence Awards and the inaugural Victorian PICA Awards.

In a similar move, the 3DAP committee (Digital Data Delivery for Australian Publications) intend to release version 3 (V3) of their proof guidelines early next year. Version 3 will adopt the international printing standard ISO 12647-2 and will follow the proposed ISO 12647-7 tolerance for proofing quality control, which is still in draft form.

3DAP committee chairman James Hawkes commented: "We can only agree with the move by the LIA and Printing Industries to support printing to the ISO 12647-2 standard in Australia and believe one of the many benefits will be a common colour space for both web and sheet-fed print applications. This should narrow the divide between the two printing methods and deliver a more consistent and standardised colour outcome regardless of the type of printing press used."