The UK's favourite print show - MacMate

LARGE FORMAT
BIG ideas
In order to break new ground with its ambitious variable data printing plans,
large format printer Imprint is developing its own web to print solution.
Web to print has never been tried on the scale that
Newcastle printer Imprint is considering. There
are printers that handle more jobs, printers that
take more revenue than Imprint intends, but no
other printer has applied web to print to large
format display printing as Imprint is considering.
There are good reasons for this. If nothing else the file sizes
for the sorts of display print produced at Imprint are enormous.
And nobody would sensibly develop a specialist display print
application before web to print for commercial printing. But
Imprint wants to break new ground with variable data printing:
it has to develop its own solution.
THE COMPANY OPERATES WITH three Inca Onset S20s, the
largest concentration of this press type in the country, an Inca
Spyder and most recently a Xerox iGen4 in a new factory ten
minutes from the centre of the city. The company moved in only
in September, installing the last of the Onsets in January.
There is a separate screen printing factory with a four-colour
Thieme and two single-colour machines across the city. “We will
never get rid of screen, because there are things that you do only
with screen printing,” says group production director Paul
Newton, explaining that screen is unbeatable for high impact
fluorescents, for metallics and for some spot colours.
Four-colour printing is, however, reserved for the digital
machines, these days in a spacious 21st century plant. It is on a
development that is more science park than industrial estate,
finished to a high specification throughout and designed for the
next phase in the company’s development. It paves the way for
the company to grow from around £7 million a year to £10
million.
IMPRINT STARTED 23 YEARS AGO as a screen printer
operating hand benches, added litho printing and acquired a
customer base from retail and brands looking for point of sale
and display print. Litho was dropped as it was easier to buy this
in than to keep investing and the business stepped away from
any temptation to invest in ultra large format KBA or Manroland
presses. Instead Imprint has moved in the other direction,
building on its decision to invest in large format inkjet printing.
In 2001 the company had become only the third to buy an
Inca Eagle 44. At the time sales were just £1.4 million so a
£400,000 spend was more than significant, especially as inkjet
had still to prove it could handle the demands of display print
customers. That was in 2001.
“It got us out of the rat race to some degree,” says group
development director Dave Bullivant. “You can’t survive as a
commercial printer, you have to offer something different.” In
2007 it acquired Perfect Screen Print, doubling the sales of the
business at a stroke, now poised for the next leap forwards.
The relationship with Inca and with distributor Fuji Sericol
38 May 2011 www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
has endured through new generations of press. “We have noticed
a big improvement in the quality of digital printing,” he
continues. At one point the company had three Eagles and two
Spyders, sweeping them aside to start the new plant with a new
generation of technology.
The three Onsets are spread along the length of the new
factory which looks as clean as when the company moved in in
September last year. All are profiled to match Fogra 39L proofs,
allowing large jobs to be spread across the three presses if
needed.
The move brought together 60 of the company’s 72 staff
together under one roof for the first time and has given the
management team the chance to set a new culture. Productivity
has improved through the efficiencies of having everything in
one location. “Many of the staff had never worked together before
and many have worked in factories which simply did not have
windows,” Bullivant says.
Newton adds: “It has been a tough year. We started with a
shell of a building – no lights, no heating. We had to decide
where to position power sockets – everything. And we made the
move without any customers realising what was going on. It has
been a big step change.”
THERE IS PLENTIFUL NATURAL LIGHT in the BREEAM
specified building, it is energy efficient and rainwater is
harvested. The environment, not surprisingly given its customer
base of retailers, is a priority that Imprint pays more than lip
service towards. It has taken on graduates on projects looking at
how to cut its carbon impact still further. The new factory has
allowed it to take another step greenwards.
Inside the company has specified high lux lamps to ensure
that light is even throughout the plant and that there are no
shadows created. Planning and executing the move took a year
of working out, calculating where power points should be
placed, how materials will flow from one end of the factory and
what sort of office space might be needed. Nevertheless the move
went to the wire. “We finally received the keys of the finished
plant on the Monday with the first press arriving on Wednesday,”
says Bullivant.
Other than keeping details of its move quiet, he says that the
business is very open with its clients and suppliers, fostering
deeper relationships that when it comes to selling variable data
print will open doors inside the marketing departments that have
to buy in to the potential of VDP.
“THE FUTURE FOR US IS ALL ABOUT VARIABLE data, it’s
about web to print working, it’s about personalisation,” says
Bullivant. “Once we talk VDP we are talking to the marketing
departments rather than just print buyers.”
In one application of the technology Imprint expects
customers to create artwork on line, choosing the campaign