Fespa preview: Get a seat in business class as London show takes off
But this is not in fact the aim of the show’s jet-setty look. As anyone who attended last year’s smaller digital-only show in Barcelona or perhaps 2011’s show in Hamburg, will know, Fespa is all about the themes. And this year’s? You guessed it: ‘Your Destination for Print’. This new motif very much builds on the previous three shows’ themes of revolution, evolution and then application, explains Neil Felton, managing director of exhibitions and events. “First there were revolutionary new technologies, and then they evolved, then people became very much focused on applications and looking at the vast array of ways wide-format print could be used,” he says. “Now people are actually solidifying further what the revolution and evolution means to them so they’re deciding where the destination is.” Many of the show’s new features are geared around helping people understand how to apply the innovations of recent years to their own businesses, explains Felton. First there’s the new Jet Set Conference schedule. This will address key areas of opportunity for printers including those in digital textile, digital printing, business building skills and industrial printing, and has a confirmed line-up of industry figure-heads such as Paul Noble of Banner Box, Nick Del Verme of Advanced Digital Textiles, Nick Devine (AKA The Print Coach) and Melanie Bowles from Chelsea College of Art. Then printers would be well-advised to take a stroll down the show’s new Inspiration Runway, says Felton, where they‘ll see examples of innovative print, along with case study details of how they were created in a whole range of formats, including interior design, garments, printed electronics, outdoor, screen print effects, instore and augmented reality. “There’s going to be a massive array of different types of applications there; some really interesting things,” promises Felton. On-hand to offer more specific inspiration will be the Pilot’s Briefing Zone and Fespa Fabric, both providing expert advice for those considering branching out into garment production. Inspiring exhibits But it won’t all be about printers gaining application advice. Many of the show’s features are also geared towards inspiring brand owners about what sorts of innovative print they might harness to enhance their brands. Joining the Inspiration Runway in doing this will be the Creative Corner area it leads into, where a range of seminars on packaging, instore graphics, interiors, outdoor and super large-format print will aim to inspire designers, creatives and brand owners and open up relationships between them and printing companies. “Our biggest frustration as a federation is that often creatives don’t realise there are so many different ways print can be used,” says Felton. “So the Creative Corner is where we as a federation are trying to engage with the printer’s customer and the wider market out there to say ‘print can be inspiring, there are so any fascinating ways you can involve print.’ We’ve got Coca-Cola, Unilever, TBWA, some really leading agencies talking about how print can be used.” Fespa’s aim, then, is that no one -whether printer or brand owner – leave the show without renewed faith in innovative print. Hopefully really sealing the deal will be the more entertaining aspects of the show, the Wrap Cup Masters Series and Fespa’s Hall of Fame. The former will see vehicle wrappers from around the world go head to head. The latter...
read moreFespa preview: Get a seat in business class as London show takes off
But this is not in fact the aim of the show’s jet-setty look. As anyone who attended last year’s smaller digital-only show in Barcelona or perhaps 2011’s show in Hamburg, will know, Fespa is all about the themes. And this year’s? You guessed it: ‘Your Destination for Print’. This new motif very much builds on the previous three shows’ themes of revolution, evolution and then application, explains Neil Felton, managing director of exhibitions and events. “First there were revolutionary new technologies, and then they evolved, then people became very much focused on applications and looking at the vast array of ways wide-format print could be used,” he says. “Now people are actually solidifying further what the revolution and evolution means to them so they’re deciding where the destination is.” Many of the show’s new features are geared around helping people understand how to apply the innovations of recent years to their own businesses, explains Felton. First there’s the new Jet Set Conference schedule. This will address key areas of opportunity for printers including those in digital textile, digital printing, business building skills and industrial printing, and has a confirmed line-up of industry figure-heads such as Paul Noble of Banner Box, Nick Del Verme of Advanced Digital Textiles, Nick Devine (AKA The Print Coach) and Melanie Bowles from Chelsea College of Art. Then printers would be well-advised to take a stroll down the show’s new Inspiration Runway, says Felton, where they‘ll see examples of innovative print, along with case study details of how they were created in a whole range of formats, including interior design, garments, printed electronics, outdoor, screen print effects, instore and augmented reality. “There’s going to be a massive array of different types of applications there; some really interesting things,” promises Felton. On-hand to offer more specific inspiration will be the Pilot’s Briefing Zone and Fespa Fabric, both providing expert advice for those considering branching out into garment production. Inspiring exhibits But it won’t all be about printers gaining application advice. Many of the show’s features are also geared towards inspiring brand owners about what sorts of innovative print they might harness to enhance their brands. Joining the Inspiration Runway in doing this will be the Creative Corner area it leads into, where a range of seminars on packaging, instore graphics, interiors, outdoor and super large-format print will aim to inspire designers, creatives and brand owners and open up relationships between them and printing companies. “Our biggest frustration as a federation is that often creatives don’t realise there are so many different ways print can be used,” says Felton. “So the Creative Corner is where we as a federation are trying to engage with the printer’s customer and the wider market out there to say ‘print can be inspiring, there are so any fascinating ways you can involve print.’ We’ve got Coca-Cola, Unilever, TBWA, some really leading agencies talking about how print can be used.” Fespa’s aim, then, is that no one -whether printer or brand owner – leave the show without renewed faith in innovative print. Hopefully really sealing the deal will be the more entertaining aspects of the show, the Wrap Cup Masters Series and Fespa’s Hall of Fame. The former will see vehicle wrappers from around the world go head to head. The latter...
read moreGet a seat in business class as London show takes off
But this is not in fact the aim of the show’s jet-setty look. As anyone who attended last year’s smaller digital-only show in Barcelona or perhaps 2011’s show in Hamburg, will know, Fespa is all about the themes. And this year’s? You guessed it: ‘Your Destination for Print’. This new motif very much builds on the previous three shows’ themes of revolution, evolution and then application, explains Neil Felton, managing director of exhibitions and events. “First there were revolutionary new technologies, and then they evolved, then people became very much focused on applications and looking at the vast array of ways wide-format print could be used,” he says. “Now people are actually solidifying further what the revolution and evolution means to them so they’re deciding where the destination is.” Many of the show’s new features are geared around helping people understand how to apply the innovations of recent years to their own businesses, explains Felton. First there’s the new Jet Set Conference schedule. This will address key areas of opportunity for printers including those in digital textile, digital printing, business building skills and industrial printing, and has a confirmed line-up of industry figure-heads such as Paul Noble of Banner Box, Nick Del Verme of Advanced Digital Textiles, Nick Devine (AKA The Print Coach) and Melanie Bowles from Chelsea College of Art. Then printers would be well-advised to take a stroll down the show’s new Inspiration Runway, says Felton, where they‘ll see examples of innovative print, along with case study details of how they were created in a whole range of formats, including interior design, garments, printed electronics, outdoor, screen print effects, instore and augmented reality. “There’s going to be a massive array of different types of applications there; some really interesting things,” promises Felton. On-hand to offer more specific inspiration will be the Pilot’s Briefing Zone and Fespa Fabric, both providing expert advice for those considering branching out into garment production. Inspiring exhibits But it won’t all be about printers gaining application advice. Many of the show’s features are also geared towards inspiring brand owners about what sorts of innovative print they might harness to enhance their brands. Joining the Inspiration Runway in doing this will be the Creative Corner area it leads into, where a range of seminars on packaging, instore graphics, interiors, outdoor and super large-format print will aim to inspire designers, creatives and brand owners and open up relationships between them and printing companies. “Our biggest frustration as a federation is that often creatives don’t realise there are so many different ways print can be used,” says Felton. “So the Creative Corner is where we as a federation are trying to engage with the printer’s customer and the wider market out there to say ‘print can be inspiring, there are so any fascinating ways you can involve print.’ We’ve got Coca-Cola, Unilever, TBWA, some really leading agencies talking about how print can be used.” Fespa’s aim, then, is that no one -whether printer or brand owner – leave the show without renewed faith in innovative print. Hopefully really sealing the deal will be the more entertaining aspects of the show, the Wrap Cup Masters Series and Fespa’s Hall of Fame. The former will see vehicle wrappers from around the world go head to head. The latter...
read moreExpress KCS expands offer with new marketing appointment
The company has enlisted Hogarth Worldwide’s ex-head of client production Nick Marlborough to the role of global business development consultant, Europe. Traditionally a supplier of pre-media services to newspaper and magazine publishers, Express KCS said it was experiencing more demand from brand owners that wanted to work directly with the company rather than with agencies, as well as an increased demand for digital and video post-production work. Marlborough has been recruited specifically to drive the business forward into these markets. Before joining Hogarth Worldwide in January 2011, Marlborough, who specialises in developing corporate and creative client relationships, held a string of positions at global design and production agency Tag. Express KCS chief executive Robert Berkeley said Marlborough’s experience would enable the company to offer retailers and brand owners better value for money. He added: “As brand owners look to make marketing spend work harder – reducing costs while maintaining brand integrity – we are seeing increased demand for our high-end creative and production expertise. “Nick has first-hand understanding of marketing production and brand requirements coupled with experience of complex production workflows. He is widely respected among customers and will be a valuable addition to our team.” Marlborough said: “With Express KCS’s wide range of creative services, their capacity, unique technology and the added benefit of providing efficient cost savings, I’m looking forward to bringing this new proposition to brand owners and retailers.”...
read moreGet a seat in business class as London show takes off
But this is not in fact the aim of the show’s jet-setty look. As anyone who attended last year’s smaller digital-only show in Barcelona or perhaps 2011’s show in Hamburg, will know, Fespa is all about the themes. And this year’s? You guessed it: ‘Your Destination for Print’. This new motif very much builds on the previous three shows’ themes of revolution, evolution and then application, explains Neil Felton, managing director of exhibitions and events. “First there were revolutionary new technologies, and then they evolved, then people became very much focused on applications and looking at the vast array of ways wide-format print could be used,” he says. “Now people are actually solidifying further what the revolution and evolution means to them so they’re deciding where the destination is.” Many of the show’s new features are geared around helping people understand how to apply the innovations of recent years to their own businesses, explains Felton. First there’s the new Jet Set Conference schedule. This will address key areas of opportunity for printers including those in digital textile, digital printing, business building skills and industrial printing, and has a confirmed line-up of industry figure-heads such as Paul Noble of Banner Box, Nick Del Verme of Advanced Digital Textiles, Nick Devine (AKA The Print Coach) and Melanie Bowles from Chelsea College of Art. Then printers would be well-advised to take a stroll down the show’s new Inspiration Runway, says Felton, where they‘ll see examples of innovative print, along with case study details of how they were created in a whole range of formats, including interior design, garments, printed electronics, outdoor, screen print effects, instore and augmented reality. “There’s going to be a massive array of different types of applications there; some really interesting things,” promises Felton. On-hand to offer more specific inspiration will be the Pilot’s Briefing Zone and Fespa Fabric, both providing expert advice for those considering branching out into garment production. Inspiring exhibits But it won’t all be about printers gaining application advice. Many of the show’s features are also geared towards inspiring brand owners about what sorts of innovative print they might harness to enhance their brands. Joining the Inspiration Runway in doing this will be the Creative Corner area it leads into, where a range of seminars on packaging, instore graphics, interiors, outdoor and super large-format print will aim to inspire designers, creatives and brand owners and open up relationships between them and printing companies. “Our biggest frustration as a federation is that often creatives don’t realise there are so many different ways print can be used,” says Felton. “So the Creative Corner is where we as a federation are trying to engage with the printer’s customer and the wider market out there to say ‘print can be inspiring, there are so any fascinating ways you can involve print.’ We’ve got Coca-Cola, Unilever, TBWA, some really leading agencies talking about how print can be used.” Fespa’s aim, then, is that no one -whether printer or brand owner – leave the show without renewed faith in innovative print. Hopefully really sealing the deal will be the more entertaining aspects of the show, the Wrap Cup Masters Series and Fespa’s Hall of Fame. The former will see vehicle wrappers from around the world go head to head. The latter...
read moreExpress KCS expands offer with new marketing appointment
The company has enlisted Hogarth Worldwide’s ex-head of client production Nick Marlborough to the role of global business development consultant, Europe. Traditionally a supplier of pre-media services to newspaper and magazine publishers, Express KCS said it was experiencing more demand from brand owners that wanted to work directly with the company rather than with agencies, as well as an increased demand for digital and video post-production work. Marlborough has been recruited specifically to drive the business forward into these markets. Before joining Hogarth Worldwide in January 2011, Marlborough, who specialises in developing corporate and creative client relationships, held a string of positions at global design and production agency Tag. Express KCS chief executive Robert Berkeley said Marlborough’s experience would enable the company to offer retailers and brand owners better value for money. He added: “As brand owners look to make marketing spend work harder – reducing costs while maintaining brand integrity – we are seeing increased demand for our high-end creative and production expertise. “Nick has first-hand understanding of marketing production and brand requirements coupled with experience of complex production workflows. He is widely respected among customers and will be a valuable addition to our team.” Marlborough said: “With Express KCS’s wide range of creative services, their capacity, unique technology and the added benefit of providing efficient cost savings, I’m looking forward to bringing this new proposition to brand owners and retailers.”...
read moreInktec to launch latest Jetrix at Fespa
The new printer is a 2.5×1.3m UV flatbed machine. It comes in two configurations; the KX5 and the KX5-R, which has an optional 2.2m-wide roll-to-roll feature. The new machine uses a patented inkset that the company said had been specially formulated to give strong adhesion to difficult substrates, such as glass, acrylic and metal, without the need for a primer. According to the company, it is guaranteed not to chip when routed or cut. It can also be printed onto softer substrates, such as polypropylene, and then folded without cracking. The KX5 employs the same next-generation 6 picolitre Konica Minolta 1024 printheads as can be found on the Jetrix 1212, which, according to Inktec, offer “photographic quality” and can print at up to 1,440dpi at speeds of up to 30sqm/hr. It also features a multi-layer print function that enables users to schedule their print in layers instead of having to do multiple passes. Inktec launched the KX5 in the US at the IFA show in April and one machine has since been installed at a US reseller, Seiko America. The list price for the new machine is around £90,000 depending on the...
read moreInktec to launch latest Jetrix at Fespa
The new printer is a 2.5×1.3m UV flatbed machine. It comes in two configurations; the KX5 and the KX5-R, which has an optional 2.2m-wide roll-to-roll feature. The new machine uses a patented inkset that the company said had been specially formulated to give strong adhesion to difficult substrates, such as glass, acrylic and metal, without the need for a primer. According to the company, it is guaranteed not to chip when routed or cut. It can also be printed onto softer substrates, such as polypropylene, and then folded without cracking. The KX5 employs the same next-generation 6 picolitre Konica Minolta 1024 printheads as can be found on the Jetrix 1212, which, according to Inktec, offer “photographic quality” and can print at up to 1,440dpi at speeds of up to 30sqm/hr. It also features a multi-layer print function that enables users to schedule their print in layers instead of having to do multiple passes. Inktec launched the KX5 in the US at the IFA show in April and one machine has since been installed at a US reseller, Seiko America. The list price for the new machine is around £90,000 depending on the...
read more‘It has always been about excitement’
However, she’s just as passionate about the role of ‘people power’ and how it enabled her to blaze a trail in change management at The Daily Mirror, become one of the lynchpins of realising founder David Mitchell’s dream of creating the ‘Capita of print’ at Astron, and build a £100m-turnover telecoms business from scratch. So giving the ‘Fed’ and the industry at large a makeover should be a walk in the park by comparison. Darryl Danielli You’ve had a fairly colourful career in print, how did you get in to the industry?Kathy WoodwardHow far do you want to go back? I graduated with social sciences degree from Lancaster, did a postgraduate degree at Manchester and then joined ICL. So I was in high-tech when it was exciting. I did quite well there [becoming organisational development manager] and loved it, you’ve got to remember that at the time ICL was competing with IBM and ICL’s entire turnover was less than IBM’s R&D budget, but we were still producing products that could compete and a large part of that was around the people story. How did you get your foot in the door at ICL?To be honest, I got in because my dad was worldwide support director. He had about 5,000 engineers under him, so it was absolutely jobs for the kids. After I had been there a while though, out of the blue I got a call from a headhunter asking if I wanted to come and talk about a job that was one of the ‘major cultural change stories’. So I went along, it was for The Daily Mirror, so the British Newspaper Printing Corporation (BNPC), to manage their cultural change from Fleet Street to the new Mirror colour printing plants, where they were going to put in 21 Colorman presses. Presumably you bit their hand off?Not really. Tony Britton, Alan Rowe and someone from editorial interviewed me and I just thought they were bonkers. I had a great career at ICL and had a lovely life and just assumed I would never hear from them again. But then they called back and said ‘we want you – how much?’ I can’t remember if I tripled or quadrupled what I was on at the time, just thinking that would be a polite cheerio and they just said ‘yeah, that’s fine, when do you want to start’. That must have been a pretty daunting introduction to print though?Yes, but it’s when I absolutely fell in love with print. I remember standing on the deck at Watford when we had all 10 presses pumping out 700,000 copies per hour and I thought it was the most exciting thing I had ever seen. For me it still it is. It’s the instantaneous creativity of the industry: one minute it’s white paper and ink in a bucket, and the next minute it’s fabulous product that is going to be in every home in the country. When people talk about the industry being down, I just can’t get it, because I can’t shake that image of Saturday night on the Wharf. But how did you get into commercial print then?If you remember, Maxwell sold off the British Printing Corporation [which ultimately became Polestar] and they asked me if I wanted to go over as...
read more‘It has always been about excitement’
However, she’s just as passionate about the role of ‘people power’ and how it enabled her to blaze a trail in change management at The Daily Mirror, become one of the lynchpins of realising founder David Mitchell’s dream of creating the ‘Capita of print’ at Astron, and build a £100m-turnover telecoms business from scratch. So giving the ‘Fed’ and the industry at large a makeover should be a walk in the park by comparison. Darryl Danielli You’ve had a fairly colourful career in print, how did you get in to the industry?Kathy WoodwardHow far do you want to go back? I graduated with social sciences degree from Lancaster, did a postgraduate degree at Manchester and then joined ICL. So I was in high-tech when it was exciting. I did quite well there [becoming organisational development manager] and loved it, you’ve got to remember that at the time ICL was competing with IBM and ICL’s entire turnover was less than IBM’s R&D budget, but we were still producing products that could compete and a large part of that was around the people story. How did you get your foot in the door at ICL?To be honest, I got in because my dad was worldwide support director. He had about 5,000 engineers under him, so it was absolutely jobs for the kids. After I had been there a while though, out of the blue I got a call from a headhunter asking if I wanted to come and talk about a job that was one of the ‘major cultural change stories’. So I went along, it was for The Daily Mirror, so the British Newspaper Printing Corporation (BNPC), to manage their cultural change from Fleet Street to the new Mirror colour printing plants, where they were going to put in 21 Colorman presses. Presumably you bit their hand off?Not really. Tony Britton, Alan Rowe and someone from editorial interviewed me and I just thought they were bonkers. I had a great career at ICL and had a lovely life and just assumed I would never hear from them again. But then they called back and said ‘we want you – how much?’ I can’t remember if I tripled or quadrupled what I was on at the time, just thinking that would be a polite cheerio and they just said ‘yeah, that’s fine, when do you want to start’. That must have been a pretty daunting introduction to print though?Yes, but it’s when I absolutely fell in love with print. I remember standing on the deck at Watford when we had all 10 presses pumping out 700,000 copies per hour and I thought it was the most exciting thing I had ever seen. For me it still it is. It’s the instantaneous creativity of the industry: one minute it’s white paper and ink in a bucket, and the next minute it’s fabulous product that is going to be in every home in the country. When people talk about the industry being down, I just can’t get it, because I can’t shake that image of Saturday night on the Wharf. But how did you get into commercial print then?If you remember, Maxwell sold off the British Printing Corporation [which ultimately became Polestar] and they asked me if I wanted to go over as...
read more