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INNOVATIONS & INVESTMENTS Magnet Harlequin sets itself up as ‘colour guardian’ for its customers MAJOR INTERNATIONAL and domestic brands may manufacture almost anywhere in the world these days. It is as important to keep product packaging quality consistent, irrespective of where it is manufactured, as it is for the products themselves. For this reason, Magnet Harlequin, a concept-to-delivery creative production and packaging management specialist based in West London and Edinburgh, positions itself as the ‘colour guardian’ for its blue-chip clients. Magnet Harlequin’s client list includes major UK and international retail and luxury brands such as Marks & Spencer, John Lewis, Tesco, Heinz, Hasbro, BHS, Costa, Estée Lauder and Smythson of Bond Street. The 110-strong company offers a full range of services, from studio photography and digital postproduction through graphic design to artwork and print, all on a 24/7 basis, backed by ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certficates. “Brand leaders come to us because of our expertise, client support and ability to provide an end-to-end service, whatever the processes or media,” says managing director Alan Wright. “We have to deliver the best on all fronts. Our strategy is to invest in leading-edge technology and processes to enable us to do that, and our ability to streamline processes has both saved hundreds of thousands of pounds and minimised time to market for our clients.” For Magnet Harlequin’s print related activities, this means working flexibly with clients to optimise the quality of their printed production whether it’s digital, litho, web or flexo, and involves working with the client’s choice of printers in a consultative role to ensure that the printers can achieve the client’s objectives. 12 May 2011 www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk An Epson Stylus Pro 9900 is at the heart of Magnet Harlequin’s proofing, which adheres to the Fogra 39L standard and conforms with ISO 12647-2. Reliable and accurate proofing and colour management are key to this, and the company has carried out extensive work with the ISO 12647 group of colour standards to ensure that proofs and print match across a range of print providers and print technologies. “We play the role of brand colour guardian for all our clients so it’s critical that we deliver reliable and consistent results. We put considerable effort into achieving and maintaining these standards,” comments Wright. To provide this level of quality and consistency in hardcopy proofing, Magnet Harlequin has worked with several generations of inkjet technology, from the original Scitex Iris models of the 1990s to today’s installation which relies on three Epson Stylus Pro 9900 printers. The 44-inch Stylus Pro 9900 uses Epson’s 10-colour UltraChrome HDR inks to provide a very wide colour gamut suitable for matching corporate and brand colours, while also producing the smooth skin tones essential for cosmetics, lifestyle and clothing applications. Colour and tonal accuracy are maintained by the use of built-in spectrophotometers for regular closed-loop calibration and custom profiling on all three Stylus Pro 9900s. “Colour is a vital part of branding and commercial packaging demands high quality and uniformity,” says Wright, adding: “The Epson printers have helped us achieve significant improvements in colour consistency.” Magnet Harlequin works directly with its clients’ print companies, which are many and varied. For clothing retailers such as Marks & Spencer, the packaging is printed close to the manufacturing location, which may be in the Far East, Bangladesh, India or Turkey as well as closer to home. Although pre-media studio manager Tony Knight acknowledges that soft-proofing may one day be a viable option, given the spread of print companies and variety of equipment and expertise at each, hardcopy proofing remains the only sure option for Magnet Harlequin to guarantee the level of quality that’s required. Once proofs for client approval have been signed-off, the studio produces GMGcertified proofs for each printer and print technology as necessary and couriers them for press-side matching. Magnet Halequin’s premedia studio works to ISO international print standards where possible. For offset litho work all proofs are output to Fogra 39L proofing standard which falls within the ISO 12647-2 space. For flexo work where currently no ISO proofing standard exists, the studio works hand in glove with printers who supply either ICC profiles or test sheets that profiles are then built from. The high-resolution Epson Micro Piezo TFP print head in the Stylus Pro 9900 makes it possible to output either continuous-tone or screened output and Magnet Harlequin uses GMG’s ColorProof and Flexo Proof Rips to produce both, according to application and client preference. Productivity is also a key concern. With a production workload averaging 510 proofs – around 60 square metres – per 24 hour shift, speed and reliability are paramount. “Proofing and printing reliability is absolutely key,” confirms Wright. “The Epsons are extremely reliable and can be left to run unattended with confidence. As Magnet Harlequin continues its yearon-year growth, this productivity advantage will only become more important.”
Wire Binding Plastic Comb Binding Spiral Binding Laminating Personalised Covers INNOVATIONS & INVESTMENTS Perfect Bindery Solutions has a stand filled for short run finishing PERFECT BINDERY Solutions is demonstrating a variety of short run book finishing solutions at Northprint, using its own catalogue as a demonstration of perfect binding, casing in and trimming systems for standard books and photobooks. Managing director Steve Giddins explains that a Xerox 700 on the stand is printing personalised children’s books which can finished in a variety of ways reflecting interest in photobook and micro short runs. “Customers that used to To get started log onto www.RENZ.co.uk or email sales@renz.co.uk need to cope with print runs of 200 copies are now asking for the print run of one,” says Giddins. Being shown in Harrogate is Unibind’s Foil Express device for digitally printing foil to the cover of a book, whether smooth or textured. “We are allowing customers to type their own name on to the cover of one of the children’s books,” he says. There is a system for layflat open books using a two shot glue to hold together pages, perhaps with stiffeners, for �� photobooks or children’s titles again. “We showed this at Ipex and received a lot of interest,” he adds. PBS will also have the Wilstead three knife trimmer, a UK designed unit for handling variable format books. The system takes data from a barcode and will alter the knife settings in six seconds. In this way the unit can produce 600 all different books in an hour. Again a key market is photobooks where an A5 title may be followed by an A4 title that has been printed on the UEL boosts inplant capacity in Docklands THE UNIVERSITY OF East London has completed an update of its inplant print department which has seen Xerox provide a Colour 1000, two Nuvera 144 EA production systems, a 700 colour press and DS 5000 ProSCC bookletmaker from Duplo. This comprises an intelligent sheet feeder using barcode reader to manage variable pagination bookletmaking; a top and tail slitter and creaser, the bookletmaking unit and foreedge trimmer and finally a squareback device to improve the appearance and feel of the finished booklets. The operation had decided it Having made good use of Duplo’s DS 500 ProSCC bookletmaker, UEL is looking into QR codes. needed to improve print quality, increase throughput and wanted also to introduce variable data print over the five years that the investment is intended to last. UEL has won prizes for its personally tailored prospectuses, and anticipates developing vdp for internal consumption. “At Ipex we were actively seeking a bookletmaker that suited our new print production model,” says Steve Marlow, head of print services. “We were particularly impressed with the squareback finish, traditionally higher education printed prospectuses and booklets can be quite thick, so the inline spine square along with the SCC crease has made a massive different to the quality of our books.” Print output is used on a same machine and is part of the same production process. “The beauty of the system is that it is fully automatic, there is no need to change cables or other components. It may not be the faster device on the market. but this is not necessary for short run printing,” Giddins continues. “And the unit is designed and made in Stockport.” The ODM pressing unit for short run books is also a feature along with Unibind and James Burn Wire-O equipment. wide range of the university’s courses, requiring an equally diverse range of products. Push button set up on the Duplo became a highly appreciated feature, previously such changes required spanners and socket sets to make. The inplant at the Docklands campus was formed in 2006 from separate print centres at Barking, Stratford and Docklands. Next up is looking at how QR codes may be added to print as a form of marketing. “These kinds of projects are now the future for this print facility and we believe we can drive the university forward ,” says Marlow. www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk May 2011 13 Binding Made Simple
Page 1 and 2: THE MAGAZINE FOR FORWARD THINKING P
Page 3 and 4: From the editor How many printers c
Page 5 and 6: HYBRID. H Y BR RID . DUETTO D U E T
Page 7 and 8: Heidelberg Graphic Equipment Ltd
Page 9 and 10: WHAT CAN YOU DO IN SIX MINUTES? Pre
Page 11: Visit us at Northprint Hall M, , St
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