Business

PrintMAX will be showcasing Roland's range of large format printers at this year’s Sign and Digital UK on stand F30.

Michael Bolton, managing director of printMAX, comments, “Sign and Digital UK proves -year after year- to be the Sign Industry’s premier event. It offers an invaluable opportunity to meet and greet a variety of visitors over the three show days, from customers that have been established in the print industry for decades, to those just starting out.”

This year printMAX celebrated a third year as Roland’s most successful authorised dealer - no doubt a contributing factor to their ideal stand location, right next to Roland.

“When it comes to Roland printers we are confident that not only will the quality of the overall solution exceed expectations but that we can offer the best advice, knowledge and technical support in the market.... Which is why our stand will be home to the best Roland products for the three days at Birmingham’s NEC,” adds printMAX sales manager, Chris Martin.

The stand will encompass all the latest and greatest technology from Roland DG including the recently launched Roland SolJet Pro 4 XR-640. The XR-640 with printing speeds of up to 49.1M2 per hour has proven increasingly popular for printMAX who not only secured the first European sale but have also gone on to sell more units than any other UK dealer. The XR-640 will sit alongside the LEJ-640 and LEF-12 from the Roland VersaUV range along with a selection of printers from the bestselling Roland Versacamm series.

Additional to the variety of Roland large format printers on display, printMAX will also be presenting istockMAX, the leading image provider for sign makers. Visitors to stand F30 can expect a range of show offers, demonstrations and daily competitions.  The printMAX team will also be on hand to offer advice on laminator, cutter and consumable solutions.

For more information, please visit www.printmax.co.uk

Resolution (GB), trading as HP Plotter, today announced the imminent availability of its Fugazi range of HP Designjet printer dust covers.  Manufactured in the UK, covers for the Designjet T120 and T520 range are now available with plans to roll out covers for the remaining  HP Designjet T and Z series models later in the year. 

Designed to look good both at home and in the office and made from strong and durable ‘rip stop’ nylon, the stylish T120 and T520 Designjet dust covers will help to protect printers from dirt, dust and spills.  They also come with a useful front pocket (with a free service history log card) allowing you to keep track of work carried out on your printer, any support contract details as well as useful re-ordering information.

Resolution's managing director, Nicola Bray, comments, “As an engineering company specialising in HP Designjet printers, we often attend customer sites where, after carrying out a full service and clean of their Designjet, the fault is resolved without fitting any spare parts.  The majority of our customers fall into the Architectural, Engineering and Construction sector and often their printers are used in dusty or hostile environments.  Consequently, this clogs the inner workings of the printer and causes spurious error messages as well as premature wear and tear of parts.  A typical fault would include a sensor becoming so dirty that the printer is unable to load paper.  As an expensive piece of equipment it makes sense to minimise downtime and wear and tear by using a dust protector.”

A complementary range of Media Dust Covers go hand-in-hand with the Designjet Dust Covers - and are adjustable, being supplied in two sizes: SMALL 24”-36” (for A1/A0 rolls) and MEDIUM 42”-44” (for A0+ rolls).  The bright colours are designed to allow papers to be quickly and easily distinguished – ideal for the partially sighted - while the ergonomic design allows for easy fitting and labelling.

“We feel that the Fugazi Media Covers complement our range of Designjet Dust covers.   We were inspired by our many customers who find it annoying to sort through various rolls of paper in order to work out ‘which one is which’.  Often their paper/media is dirty or damaged and they end up having to lose a metre or so every time they re-load it.   While it isn’t such a problem for a £7-£10 roll of paper, it is an issue where some high end papers and media cost upwards of £100 per roll.   More importantly though, the paper has been left accumulating dust which is then pulled into the printer.  Over time this dust causes increased downtime and higher maintenance costs.  Our Fugazi Media Covers should help to reduce this.”

 

North Print & Pack 2013 visitors are invited to register their interest to take part in the S’Print speed networking event, which will run in the seminar theatres from 10:30am – 11:00am on Tuesday 14th May 2013. The event will take place in both seminar theatres, focusing on print and packaging respectively, to offer attendees the opportunity to have short, relevant discussions and expand their network of business contacts.

“S’print is the ideal opportunity for visitors to marry-up the ‘who you know’ with ‘what you know’ in a short space of time,” comments Ruth Clougherty, North Print & Pack 2013 Conference Producer. “By kicking off their North Print & Pack 2013 visit with this networking session, time-poor visitors can meet up to six new business contacts in a relaxing environment. This gives them the opportunity to establish potentially meaningful business relationships in a short space of time.”

In North Print & Pack 2013 Theatre 1, commercial print vendors and buyers will have the opportunity to share professional backgrounds and business goals in five-minutes before moving on to the next station, while those with a packaging focus will attend the session in Theatre 2.

For more information about North Print & Pack 2013 and to register to take part in S’Print, please visit www.printandpack.co.uk.

Zünd Plotting Systems (UK) Limited has appointed Nathan Chapman to the newly created role of Operations Manager, based at Zünd UK’s demonstration suite, sales and service centre in St Albans.  He joins Zünd UK from Esko Artwork where he was Service and Support Manager for UK and Ireland.

With a career spanning 25 years, Nathan brings valuable experience in both hardware and software to Zünd UK.  He will be responsible for overseeing day-to-day operations and for strengthening customer service and support.

On Nathan's appointment, Peter Giddings, managing director of Zünd UK says, “[Nathan's] knowledge and understanding of the UK packaging industry is outstanding and his experience as a Senior Service Manager is unsurpassed.  Nathan will be a strong asset to our team and will help us to provide the unrivalled levels of customer support and service Zünd UK is known for as we continue to grow.”

Nathan adds, “I am looking forward to working with Zünd UK’s customers and providing first-class customer service and solutions.  Zünd UK has a great reputation for superior engineering and brilliant customer care.  I am looking forward to getting to know everyone and to the new opportunities ahead.”

For more information on the Zünd product range, please visit www.zund.co.uk.

Deutscher Drucker has awarded the 2012-2013 International Print Technology Award to EFI. The award goes to EFI Digital StoreFront, Pace, PrintSmith, Monarch and Radius as one integrated package of management information systems (MIS/ERP) and web-to-print solution.

EFI MIS was the winner in the prepress category in the online vote in which 1,643 readers of the Deutscher Drucker, Deutscher Drucker - International Edition, Grafische Palette and print.de participated. The voting took place in October and November 2012 at the print.de website.

On 18th February 2013, Bernhard Niemela, managing director of Deutscher Drucker Verlag, and editorial staff member Kurt K. Wolf presented the award to Georg Hollenbach, general manager of EFI Germany and Marc Verbiest, international Public Relations manager.

"Using Digital StoreFront, every printing house can create their own website and web shop to help process orders made online by their customers.  Digital StoreFront can also be installed at the customer site so employees can send their documents to the printing house," explains Hollenbach. Pace is a fully integrated, browser-based software product developed especially for the print and media industry. It streamlines jobs from end-to-end - from calculation to dispatching, for conventional, digital or large-format printers. The Monarch product manages and automates multi-site print factories and Radius meets the specific requirements of the packaging industry."

"AT EFI, we are truly honoured to receive Deutscher Drucker's International Print Technology Award - it gives invaluable recognition to our EFI MIS systems which companies everywhere use to seamlessly integrate and automate their processes," adds Verbiest. "We are in a strong position already and we are committed to the continued development of these products to support the business growth of our customers."

For more information about EFI, please visit www.efi.com

East Sussex-based digital print company Elephant Print and Display is delighted to announce that Mark Crook has joined the company in the role of Director.

Mark has worked in the printing and graphic industry for over thirty years and brings with him a wealth of experience and knowledge to the creative and pre-press departments.

Commenting on the new appointment, Elephant Print and Display Director Jason Gadd, stated, “I'm so pleased that Mark has chosen to join the business and he has already allowed Elephant to move into other areas, he is even able to provide cover for our Indigo press which is a huge bonus.”

In addition, Mark’s background and experience will enable the company to diversify into new areas of communication such as heavyweight graphic design, audio visual presentations and online interactive media. Talking about his new job, Mark said, “I've known everyone at Elephant since they started and I'm really excited about helping the company grow.”

During his print industry career, Mark has worked for Erreys printers Group in Heathfield, Mint Design Associates in Brighton and has also freelanced under his own company name Hippo.

Mark is also one of the organisers for the Meadowlands Music Festival which is held over three days in May at Glynde, near Lewes in Sussex. As a result of Mark’s appointment Elephant are now a sponsor for this event.

Explaining Elephant’s involvement in the festival, Director Jason Gadd said, “Meadowlands is a great event and Elephant are able to provide some really original promotional materials as well as important safety signs for the site. Our participation means the company is associated with a well respected festival, which has become an important part of the local creative community.”

Elephant Print and Display’s most recent successful projects have included a large digital print run for a catering facilities group along with an employee seminar presentation for the same company. As a result, Elephant has converted one of their storage rooms at their site into a dedicated production studio which provides additional workspace and allows their team to work on these larger projects.

Elephant has also recently completed work on a large project for a corporate retail outlet, which involved the production of 160 2.3m banners, all of which were then delivered to 132 different outlets throughout the UK. Director Jason Gadd revealed that the colour matching was crucial for this work, and this was achieved with the spot-colour replacement facility using Wasatch RIP technology. The job was subsequently delivered before deadline with consistent colour throughout the run.

Formed in 2002 by Directors Jason Gadd and Jamie Benson, both former pre-press operators, Elephant Print and Display has a staff of 6 people and operates as a digital only printing company based in two converted barn units in scenic surroundings near Lewes in East Sussex.

Elephant Print and Display operates with an Indigo 3050 press and HP designjet large format printers, with most print finishing handled in-house together with bookletmaking, perfect binding and wiro-binding alongside both large and small format laminating facilities.

Since its formation, Elephant Print and Display has gradually moved from producing large format work and repro services (such as drum scanning, retouching etc.) into short-run digital print, initially with a Xerox DocuColor press and then onto HP Indigo. As part of its business philosophy, Elephant uses environmental responsibility as a factor in procurement, energy usage and waste minimisation, and where possible advises its client to choose environmentally friendly products such as FSC certified papers.

Elephant Print and Display services a mainly business orientated customer base, built up of design and marketing agencies, local authorities, other print companies and freelance graphic designers.

For more information on Elephant Print and Display and their services, visit, www.elephantprint.co.uk or Tel: 01273 401 209