12 minute read
NEWS FRONT
GRAFX CUTS FINISHING TIMES WITH SUMMA F SERIES
The installation of a Summa F Series flatbed cutting system has cut turnaround times dramatically for graphics company Grafx, including reducing some hours long processes down to just a few minutes.
Based in Clitheroe, Grafx is a family business with roots in motorsport. It evolved around twelve years ago from a car prep company into solely a graphics producer, and in 2019 moved to larger new premises that could accommodate more work and bigger vehicles like lorries. It has also grown its workforce exponentially, to seven members of staff.
“We have expanded but we’re still a small team so we’re always looking to improve efficiency,” says Grafx Director Andrew Potts, who owns the business with his son Charlie. “We have a good reputation, and our lead times were already fast, but we wanted to speed things up even more, so bought the Summa F Series as an extra piece of equipment last summer.
“It’s an extremely useful labour saving device. We often do batches of small signage — A4 or A3 — and used to cut them to size and then print. Now we can print the whole lot on Foamex or Dibond on our HP Latex printer and then cut them all out at once. Similarly, we can cut lots of small stickers on the Summa’s throughcut function. It’s significantly quicker than our previous manual processes.”
The new Summa has had a notable impact on the production of banners: “Producing a standard order of twelve 2m banners would take five to six hours to trim manually,” says Andrew. “It now takes us ten minutes on the Summa.”
Available in five sizes and with numerous integrated functions and optional add-ons, the professional F series flatbed cutting table from Summa is designed for the fast and efficient finishing of signage, displays, packaging and other applications. As a business offering practically every type of signage, as well as a substantial amount of vehicle graphics, Grafx and the Summa F Series are an ideal partnership. The Summa F Series and Grafx’s second HP Latex printer were installed by ADAPT’s Reading based team, who also provide maintenance and repairs — which Andrew calls ‘absolutely amazing’. With an extensive range of roll to roll and flatbed printers, cutters, laminators, and RIP software amongst its offering, ADAPT provides end to end digital printing solutions and has safety continued to run business as normal throughout the COVID pandemic.
The access to such reliable support is especially important during difficult trading conditions. Andrew explains that Grafx’s work was essentially on hold for the first five or six weeks of the first lockdown last year, but soon sprang into action producing around 2,500 screens for the healthcare and beauty sectors. The ongoing lockdowns have kept the team busy as they adapt to the changing demands of customers in a unique period.
“The first few months after the first lockdown we were busier than ever making signage,” Andrew says. “We’ve developed with slightly larger customers, for example those ordering fleet graphics, and we were actually booked up until Christmas. Despite the challenges to come I’m very positive for the future.”
www.artsystems.co.uk
COLT PRESS ENHANCES WITH HORIZON CRF-362
Colt Press has streamlined workflow and enhanced the efficiency of its digital print department following investment in a Horizon CRF-362 Creaser Folder from IFS.
The Essex business was established in the 1980s and the essence of its operation is its can-do attitude for every job and every client. It manages a wide range of general commercial print on a Heidelberg Speedmaster XL75 with Inpress Control colour management system and a Ricoh Pro C9100.
Managing Director Paul Haddow explains the decision to invest in the Horizon CRF-362 Creaser Folder: “We had an older creaser but we wanted something to fold and crease more responsively alongside our digital press. Now we don’t have to move work to the main bindery area and we don’t have to interrupt production on the bigger folder. It helps us to manage short run jobs more effectively and enables us to work more efficiently while adhering to social distancing guidelines.”
Mr Haddow did consider other options before making his choice. He said: “The Horizon CRF-362 Creaser Folder is more suited to the type of work that we do and can complete the multiple creases we needed. It is able to crease up and down folds and handle a longer sheet as well. It provides us with much greater production flexibility.”
The Horizon CRF-362 creases and folds in one pass a wide range of light and heavy weight stocks, coated or uncoated. Capable of up to ten crease lines on a sheet, it uses an impact scoring technology that eliminates or minimises cracking of the stock or printed image.
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Set-up and changeovers – including fold pattern, creasing number, and up/down crease selection – are completed on the high resolution intuitive colour touch screen. “It has been up and running from day one,” he adds. “We were using it a couple hours after training. It has proven to be very robust and reliable. Everyone seems to be very happy using it.”
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DURST’S REINTERPRETATION OF PICASSO’S GUERNICA
A world famous painting reworked by celebrated Spanish photographer and artist José Manuel Ballester and printed by Durst is the star
attraction at a special exhibition. For the first time, a modified Guernica — originally painted by artist Pablo Picasso — has been printed full-size using advanced digital printing and production technologies from Durst.
Mr. Ballester has achieved international recognition for his special art of interpreting famous paintings by eliminating humans and animals. Guernica is a 1937 oil painting on canvas recognised as one of the best known works of Picasso, who died in 1973. It is regarded by many art critics as one of the most moving and powerful anti-war paintings in history.
Mr. Ballester’s work, “Around Guernica, 2009/2020”, is an emptied version of Picasso’s painting that conveys an updated look at the historical event and human tragedy. It is now a centre piece at the exhibition, “2020/03/15 José Manuel Ballester”, in the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, showing Bilbao city during the lockdown. The exhibition, which also includes a selection of large-format photographs that reflect Bilbao’s deserted streets and spaces, is open until 21 February 2021.
With “Around Guernica”, Ballester adds a new artwork to the project that began more than 10 years ago, when he decided to investigate the architectural and natural spaces that surround the stories of some of the most important works in history, such as “The Meninas” or “The Garden of Earthly Delights”. During the lockdown last spring, the artist received special permission to move around the deserted city of Bilbao and capture incredible landscapes and images never seen before.
These images were the first step of a project in collaboration with Estudios Durero and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, which culminated in a photographic exhibition, publication of a book, and the first reproduction and exhibition of “Around Guernica” to the public. In this way, Ballester adds an artwork to the Hidden Spaces project, which includes some of the transcendental and universal themes for the human being. Along with his proposal “May 3, 2008”, “Around Guernica, 2009/2020” addresses the nonsense of human violence and wars, but on this occasion, Ballester maintains a “living” element: the flower that was already shown in the original painting, and it symbolises hope, also for these difficult times that we have had to live.
In this context, The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao approached long standing Durst customer Estudios Durero, a company that “imagines, creates and develops new forms of graphic production”, to print the reworked Picasso on a unique, hand woven linen material with special white coating supplied by the museum, especially for the assignment. It had a total dimension of 3.5 x 7.8 metres.
Estudios Durero and Mr. Ballester spent a day in the Customer Experience Centre at the Durst headquarters in Brixen, Italy, with the goal to print the Picasso Guernica interpretation on a Durst Rho 512 six-colour machine. And they only had one chance – the available material was sufficient for only one print run, which meant no test print on the final material was possible.
“It has been a true honour for us and for Durst to develop this special project together with José Manuel Ballester and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao,” said the owner of Estudios Durero, Ander Soriano. “No other company could have done it. In Picasso’s original work and in Ballester’s reinterpretation, the painting only uses a very wide range of greys and a very high resolution in all its shades, so the print quality must be exceptionally high to offer a true value to its reproduction. And that would have been impossible without the Durst Rho 512 6 C.”
www.durst-group.com
EMMERSON PRESS STREAMLINES WITH HORIZON CRF-362
Emmerson Press has invested in a Horizon CRF-362 Creaser Folder neat, good quality and completed very quickly. We also liked how easy it was from IFS to streamline its digital print production and support increased to use. We could see that if we needed to jump on it to produce 100 cards we flexibility. could do so easily.”
Jamie Emmerson, Director, of the Kenilworth general commercial printer, The Horizon CRF-362 creases and folds in one pass a wide range of light explains: “We visited Horizon in Germany three years ago to see the Horizon and heavy weight stocks, coated or uncoated. Capable of up to ten crease StitchLiner but while we were there the folder creaser caught our eye. We lines on a sheet, it uses an impact scoring technology that eliminates or liked its ability to fold inline which saves time.” minimises cracking of the stock or printed image. Set-up and changeovers –
Emmerson had an old B2 creaser but it wasn’t keeping the product square including fold pattern, creasing number, and up/down crease selection – are so Jamie later visited Flexpress to see the system in operation: “When I got completed on the high resolution intuitive colour touch screen. there the machine needed calibrating because it had hit the million mark. It As for return on investment he says: “It only needs to save us an hour a was impressive that they had produced so much work without it needing any day to justify the machine and it is already doing that,” he adds. “We are very attention. It showed me just how reliable it was.” happy with it.”
He continues: “It was well built and could run all day. The results were very www.ifsl.uk.com
ABBOT PRINT STREAMLINES PRODUCTION WITH HORIZON
Abbot Print Ltd is meeting demand for fast turnaround business cards with a self contained production department featuring its new Horizon APC-610 guillotine from IFS.
The guillotine will work alongside a raft of digital presses to complete the high volume of business cards the Luton operation manages.
Celebrating its 100th year anniversary this year, Abbot Print’s core business is duplicate and triplicate books and pads, as well as continuous forms, register sets and specimen bags. Abbot operates Drent, Edelmann, Heidelberg and Ryobi and Timson presses.
Managing Director Alasdair Browne explains more about its latest investment: “We had two business card cutters but they were not always able to handle the volumes we needed. At times we were having to get the work completed by a guillotine in our main bindery. So, we decided to look around for an alternative. We needed something that could complete the volumes.”
He continues: “We liked the Horizon APC-61. It goes to a minimum cut of 25mm and has a compact footprint so it can run near the digital press producing the cards. It is so easy to set up, anyone
For the latest publication from boutique production house Leyton of London Books &
Prints, owner, and photographer, Jake Green, chose six colours from the Keaykolour range of creative papers from Antalis, each one to form part of a series of limited edition covers.
The Bookmaker’s Studio – 5th Anniversary
Edition features the work of world class illustrators and is a follow up to a visual project into the creative processes of children’s book illustrators that Jake originally carried out in 2015. He was looking for a solid coloured paper that would be the perfect vehicle for his typographic cover design and would also provide a contrast to the colour photography.
Jake opted for Keaykolour 300gsm after being impressed by its quality, texture and thickness as well as the wide colour choice. The fact that
Keaykolour papers are made in Scotland, and the whole range is carbon offset by Antalis in partnership with the World Land Trust, was also a hugely positive component for Jake.
To help make the decision Jake received a can use it, and we are able to keep guillotining with the digital staff rather than occupy a dedicated guillotine operator.”
The Horizon APC-610 Programmable Paper Cutter features a maximum cutting width of 610mm and a maximum lift height of 100mm. It has easy to use touchscreen controls enabling advanced setup automation through a user friendly icon based
LEYTON CHOOSES KEAYKOLOUR FOR ITS STUDIO BOOK
touchscreen. Its highly polished, chrome plated sample of each of the 48 colours. These were allowing customers to choose and purchase their tested on a vintage letterpress with a series of favourite cover. different inks to see which colour combinations The A4 format cover was hand letterpressed worked best. Jake opted for Keaykolour 300gsm by Hooksmith Press using a vintage Vandercook in pumpkin, Indian yellow, Caribbean blue, lipstick letterpress before being creased, folded and three pink, pastel green and pastel pink – each was hole hand sewn bound. printed with three different inks: black, blue and Keaykolour’s uncoated virgin pulp papers and red to produce 18 different cover options in total, high rigidity boards offer a palette of 48 colours work table virtually eliminates paper marking and provides a smooth, friction free surface for lift travel while its servo-motor driven back gauge assures accurate positioning and repeatability for consistent quality production.
Browne concludes: “We know and trust Horizon and IFS. The guillotine has been running constantly since it went in. It is doing what we need it to.”
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in nine harmonised families, to complement their refined, natural texture. Included are five 100% recycled stocks and a range of natural and geometric embossed patterns which further widen the options for premium print and packaging.
