PrintIT! is designed to build links between the industry and the workforce of tomorrow and amongst the 14 category winners (see below), Natasha Bates of Wycombe High School in Buckinghamshire was crowned the overall winner. Print IT! programme director for Proskills, Richard Moore said: “The entries this year were of a really high standard and all of the finalists were worthy of the overall prize so the judges thought long and hard before reaching their decision.” The PrintIT! Awards, which can form part of the curriculums for GCSEs and A Levels in Media Studies and Graphic Products/Product Design, were launched in 2005. Since then, more than 2,000 schools and 140,000 students have taken part in the scheme. Outgoing PrintIT! chairman Tony Lock, who is group commercial director at Duplo International, added: “The entire print and paper industry should be very proud that it has the largest schools into industry programme in the UK. Encouraging talent, youth and energy into our industry is critical to the continued success of print and paper in this digital world.” “Education is an investment in the future-our future. Let’s all get behind the fantastic initiative and continue the great work that has already started. I have been proud to be a small part of the programme.” A key element of the scheme is the twinning programme, where a school is twinned with a local printer to help the students develop a better understanding of the career opportunities in print. This year’s ‘Best Twinner’ winner was Learn to Dream (LtD) in East London, which was twinned with Newstead Wood School in Orpington, Kent. “We weren’t sure what to expect, but from [LtD director] Seymour Reeves’ point of view, he was really keen to give something back to the industry. And in the end it went really well as they got involved with every step of the process of producing their work,” said LtD office manager Jane Edwards. As part of their involvement, around 30 schoolchildren visited large-format specialist LtD and saw their PrintIT! projects being produced. Two of the students have subsequently undertaken work placements at the 20-staff company, with another two set to follow suit in June. “It gives us a chance to show them all of the career options in print, and it’s a great for us too because it’s a fun thing to do,” added Edwards. 2012/13 PrintIT! Category Winners Royal Opera House – Best Postcard Winner – Alex Pace from St Ives School in Cornwall Royal Opera House – Best Flyer Winner – Jake Turner from Bungay High School in Suffolk Royal Opera House – Best Poster Winner – Joseph Dann from St Ives School in Cornwall Royal Opera House –...

The company moved to a 6,000sq ft unit on the same industrial estate, which is at Ilkeston, Derbyshire, near the Nottinghamshire border and the M1. Managing director Nigel Moore said: “The new unit gives us the added ability to offer current clients and potential new customers an even better working environment and increased production capabilities. “We wanted to accommodate larger runs for work, which includes brochures and, recently, a folded paper aeroplane for a marketing campaign. In our old base we had an external storage and not much office space, now it’s under one roof.” Moore’s 18-staff company makes £700,000 turnover from kit that includes two MBOs, a B30 and B123, a B2 Stahl folding machine and a CP Bourg BB3002 for short-run perfect binding. “Since our launch in September 2009 we have been experiencing continued controlled growth investing in new machinery and employees to give a complete and comprehensive trade finishing...

Making its global debut at North Print & pack last week, the latest version of the developer’s colour management software includes a raft of new features designed to improve user experience and to greatly improve colour accuracy. Most notably a Paper Adaption Tool has been added, which is designed to help printers avoid colour mismatch between the paper tint on proofs, according to different standards, and the substrate to be printed. Version 4.8 allows the user to select a susbtrate colour and ColorServer adapts the data to match the proof. GMG’s director of business unit packaging Victor Asseiceiro said that the new capability would be a huge advantage to printers. “Colour mismatch is a huge issue for many printers and a lot of time can be wasted over it, but this really will get rid of the problem and help them to be much more efficient and accurate.” ColorServer 4.8 also contains new RGB to CMYK separation profiles. Additionally the latest version of ColorServer can output files from a PDF hot folder directly to any Windows printer. New PDF file conversion features include improved image compression, allowing flattened images to be treated with either Zip or Jpeg compression to reduce file size, more precise sharpening capability and the separation of spot colours to a late binding CMYK enabling accurate conversion of spot colours into a large printer gamut. GMG also used last week’s North Print & Pack for the UK debut of its OpenColor packaging proofing system and GMG CoZone, its cloud-based colour management product. The developer claimed that OpenColour was the industry’s first application to offer precise and predictable spot colour simulation, by analysing ink behavior in relation to the substrate’s colourmetric properties, and that it would “greatly extend colour control and repeatability”. GMG UK managing director said: “GMG OpenColor is designed to specifically produce extremely accurate digital proofs for printers using spot colours without the overhead of extensive press fingerprinting.” Meanwhile cloud-based CoZone is a modular system designed to align colour management, proofing, communication and approval processes on different output formats through the...

Group sales were down almost 28% from €263.5 in 2012 to €190.7m. A significant contributor to this figure was a 43% year-on-year drop in web and special press sales to €92.5m (2012: €162.6m) as scheduled orders were continually postponed. Meanwhile restraint in sheetfed offset purchasing led to a marginal 2.7% decline in sales to €98.2m (2012: €100.9m). Overall order intake was down 15.5% year-on-year to €200m with sheetfed offset orders of €132.8m (€152.9m) while web and special press orders also shrank with a total value of €67.2m (2012: €83.7m). Although acknowledging “unsatisfactory results” and a continued volatile market, KBA chief executive Claus Bolza-Schunemann said that the company was working hard towards sustainably improving its results and had already seen “a noticeable improvement” in gross profit margins resulting from the implementation in March of a 2.5% increase in the price of sheetfed offset presses. “Our goal is that all product sectors and business lines contribute positively to group results,” he added. Looking ahead the company is to focus on continued expansion in growth markets following the unveiling its Varius 80 web offset press for short-run flexible packaging and its first digital press – the RotaJet 76 – at Drupa 2012, as well as the acquisition of Italian flexo-press manufacturer Flexotecnica in March this year. Although details of orders for the RotaJet have so far not been disclosed, PrintWeek revealed that the first firm order and a letter of intent was received at the end of last year. Bolza-Schunemann suggested that announcements on this front were close. “We have been negotiating a raft of projects in various market segments for some time and I am confident we will announce the first sales soon,” he said. The company’s focus on the digital and packaging markets is aimed to compensate for the general market decline in sheetfed and web offset presses, he explained. He added: “In 2013 we anticipate that these new market segments will only make a limited contribution to group sales and earnings, however this should change in the midterm.” Meanwhile KBA remained firm on its goals for 2013, forecasting a modest improvement in pre-tax earnings and “similar” group sales to 2012 (€1.3bn). “I believe that our targets of a moderate rise in earnings and similar sales to 2012 remain realistic,” he said....

Group sales were down almost 28% from €263.5 in 2012 to €190.7m. A significant contributor to this figure was a 43% year-on-year drop in web and special press sales to €92.5m (2012: €162.6m) as scheduled orders were continually postponed. Meanwhile restraint in sheetfed offset purchasing led to a marginal 2.7% decline in sales to €98.2m (2012: €100.9m). Overall order intake was down 15.5% year-on-year to €200m with sheetfed offset orders of €132.8m (€152.9m) while web and special press orders also shrank with a total value of €67.2m (2012: €83.7m). Although acknowledging “unsatisfactory results” and a continued volatile market, KBA chief executive Claus Bolza-Schunemann said that the company was working hard towards sustainably improving its results and had already seen “a noticeable improvement” in gross profit margins resulting from the implementation in March of a 2.5% increase in the price of sheetfed offset presses. “Our goal is that all product sectors and business lines contribute positively to group results,” he added. Looking ahead the company is to focus on continued expansion in growth markets following the unveiling its Varius 80 web offset press for short-run flexible packaging and its first digital press – the RotaJet 76 – at Drupa 2012, as well as the acquisition of Italian flexo-press manufacturer Flexotecnica in March this year. Although details of orders for the RotaJet have so far not been disclosed, PrintWeek revealed that the first firm order and a letter of intent was received at the end of last year. Bolza-Schunemann suggested that announcements on this front were close. “We have been negotiating a raft of projects in various market segments for some time and I am confident we will announce the first sales soon,” he said. The company’s focus on the digital and packaging markets is aimed to compensate for the general market decline in sheetfed and web offset presses, he explained. He added: “In 2013 we anticipate that these new market segments will only make a limited contribution to group sales and earnings, however this should change in the midterm.” Meanwhile KBA remained firm on its goals for 2013, forecasting a modest improvement in pre-tax earnings and “similar” group sales to 2012 (€1.3bn). “I believe that our targets of a moderate rise in earnings and similar sales to 2012 remain realistic,” he said....