Kainosprint

Paper merchants raise prices amid “economic maelstrom”

admin — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 02:42:13 +0000

Australia’s ‘big three’ paper merchants – Paperlinx, KW Doggett and BJ Ball – have announced paper prices will rise by as much as 8%.

Printers have been informed of 7% increases at Paperlinx, effective yesterday, while there will be upcoming hikes on some KW Doggett stocks of 7%.

When the 6-8% price rise takes effect at BJ Ball, it will mark the second hike in three months following a 5% price increase in September.

BJ Ball general manager Craig Brown said the price rise was down to a triple economic threat.

“The factors in the increase are three fold: paper prices remain low, the costs of doing business continue to increase and orders of paper volumes continue to contract,” he said.

“The bottom line is that we need to get more margins to maintain our position as a leading low-cost paper merchant.”

KW Doggett national marketing manager Catherine Doggett told ProPrint that the merchant’s price increases would come into effect on 5 December.

“It is about getting back to a sustainable business model,” she said.

“We have continued to absorbs costs into the business such as freight, electricity and occupancy, but it has gotten to the point where the margins don’t sustain these costs so we must pass them onto the customers,” she said.

“Paper prices have been at a historically low level and it has come to a critical point at the busiest time of the year. Despite our best endeavours to keep our price at a low rate, we got to the point where we can’t maintain those prices anymore.”

Doggett added that although customers were never happy to see price increases, they understood the reasons for the hike and had been accepting of it.

A letter sent to Paperlinx customers said the paper merchant could no longer “be insulated from the economic maelstrom” the company found itself in.

“Exacerbated by rising input costs, inflationary pressure and exchange sensitivities our operating companies are ongoing aggressively recalibrating to what can only be described (as we have seen in many other global markets) as a marked and permanent structural shift in print volumes and raw material demand,” said the letter.

Possible forthcoming image deblurring function in PhotoShop (you MUST watch this!)

admin — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 04:06:09 +0000

A colleague has just sent me a link to the most amazing new filter Adobe is considering incorporating into PhotoShop.

The filter takes a photograph blurred because typically the camera shutter speed was too low. The filter tracks the direction of movement of the blurred image, removes all but the final state of the image, and magically turns a useless image into something that is pristine and sharp.

This is truly magic. View the video by clicking here.

Green warfare!

admin — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 03:52:38 +0000

Greenpeace and Wilderness Society slam PEFC as ‘signing off forest destruction’

The war of words between paper certifications has escalated after FSC backers Greenpeace and The Wilderness Society published a scathing report calling PEFC ‘greenwash for bad forestry practices’.

The report ‘On the Ground 2011’ is a follow-up to a report published earlier this year, now with input from Victorian conservation group My Environment.

PEFC claimed the report was published ‘by a set of organisations who all have close links or vested interests in FSC’ — which is a commercial rival of PEFC.

The report’s author, Anna Jenkins, is a former director of FSC UK. On a local level, the FSC Australia board includes Sean Cadman from The Wilderness Society.

Greenpeace has apparently downplayed this connection by saying ‘neither FSC nor any of its employees had anything to do with the production of the report’, according to PEFC.

In a press release sent yesterday, the local arms of Greenpeace, The Wilderness Society and My Environment slammed PEFC and its Australian affiliate, AFS.

Reece Turner, forests campaigner for Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said that ‘behind the green-looking label, the PEFC in many cases signs-off on the destruction of tropical rainforests in places like Chile, Borneo and Indonesia and ignores the concerns and complaints of indigenous and environment organisations’.

According to Warrick Jordan, national forest campaigner for The Wilderness Society: ‘It is increasingly clear that the PEFC and AFS logos cannot be trusted by consumers to deliver high environmental and social standards for forest products.

‘PEFC and AFS must fundamentally change their approach if they are to become anything other than greenwash for bad forestry practices’, added Jordan.

Sarah Rees, spokesperson for My Environment, said: ‘The PEFC standard is greenwashing bad forestry practices all over the globe, from the tropical forests of Indonesia to the majestic ash forests of Victoria’s Central Highlands’.

PEFC countered with its own statement, saying it ‘believes that collaboration beats confrontation every time’.

‘We take all criticism regarding our organisation very seriously and endeavour to cooperate fully with those who seek to understand or enquire of our work and achievements.

‘Any form of dialogue between stakeholders, however, must be held in an open, transparent and truthful manner, and be based on the best intentions in order to be constructive and bear fruit’, said PEFC.

AFS national secretary Richard Stanton told ProPrint that he believed there was another agenda behind the ‘On the Ground 2011′ report, but added ‘we don’t buy into commenting on FSC. We just focus on making sure our standard is as rigorous as possible.

‘We meet the standards set by Standards Australia. We focus on that. There isn’t a lot of value of getting into a slanging match with FSC’.

‘There is a lot of product that isn’t certified to either standard, and that should be the focus, not having an argument about the relatively small percentage that is certified’, added Stanton.

This article first appeared in the Aust/NZ edition of ProPrint

InDesign: how to print colours correctly

admin — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 03:37:37 +0000

An excellent article from www.creative pro on how to print colours correctly from InDesign was brought to my attention a couple of days ago. The article begins as follows.

Billions of years ago, when dinosaurs ruled the earth, print production managers checked documents with something called “progressive proofs” or “color proofs”. These printed pieces of paper showed how each process color (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) would print alone and in combination with the other colors. They were output as follows:

• The magenta plate alone
• The yellow plate alone
• A mixture of the yellow plate combined with the magenta plate
• The cyan plate alone
• A mixture of the cyan plate with the yellow and magenta plates
• The black plate alone
• A mixture of the black plate on the yellow, magenta, and cyan plates

The production manager used these paper proofs to see whether colors combined smoothly without abrupt drop-offs when one color blended into another. The proofs also revealed whether spot colors were set to knockout or overprint correctly.

While technology has moved on, and few places employ production managers any more, you still need to know whether your documents’ colors are correct. You could let your print shop discover any errors, but who has the time or money to re-do a job when you could have prevented mistakes before going to print? Instead, let InDesign’s Separations Preview panel show you any problems and how to fix them.

It is quite a long, relatively complex and technical article, with lots of illustrations. Highly recommended. Click here to access the full article.

Boutique letterpress launch party pulls in big Sydney print buyers

admin — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 01:47:29 +0000

Letterpress is back, judging by the turnout at a launch night of boutique printer The Distillery, with hundreds of guests, including buyers from M&C Saatchi and Pacific Magazines, spilling out onto the street.

More than 320 people attended the launch events held across two nights last week to officially open the firm, which specialises in high-end stationery printed on a 1959 Heidelberg Windmill.

The letterpress facility was overwhelmed by designers and print buyers from such notable companies as M&C Saatchi, Interbrand, Merivale, Random House, Pacific Magazines and Fairfax Media.

The Distillery director Nathan Leong described the launch as “the proudest moment of his life”, where he and the staff members wowed the packed crowd with a live demonstration of the vintage machine.

“The event was a huge success, and we were really able to connect with the creatives and designers who appreciate the tactile qualities of print,” he said.

The company rescued the press, nicknamed ‘Wolfgang’, from defunct Chippendale Press’ liquidation auction last year where it was likely to be sold for scrap metal.

In recent months, The Distillery restored the machine to its original working order and has been producing high-end print work for design agencies and consumers from the wedding industry.

Leong added that the company was already seeking larger premises and another printing press, due to the overwhelming demand for work from new customers.

Guests to the event were given a valuable sample pack, packed with beautifully ornate stationary and printed “treats”.

The article first appeared in ProPrint

The owner of “The Distillery” is a good friend of our company, and if any of our clients would like a quote for letterpress work, please let us know.

Amazon reveals iPad rival

admin — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 02:36:04 +0000

The trend from print to pixels has leapt forward with Amazon unveiling its Apple iPad rival, the Kindle Fire.

The online retailing giant, which made its mark as the world’s biggest bookstore, is banking its future firmly on digital content.

The Kindle Fire is a full-colour touch screen that promises to take the fight to Apple, whose iPad has been the dominant tablet since its launch back in early 2010.

The ace up Amazon’s sleeve is its vast repository of digital content, comprising a million e-books, 100,000 movies and TV shows and 17 million songs.

Earlier this year, sales of e-books in the USoutpaced their printed counterparts on Amazon for the first time in history, faster even than founder Jeff Bezos anticipated.

This article first appeared in ProPrint

Tips and tricks in Adobe PhotoShop 5

admin — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:21:00 +0000

As a member of Adobe’s ‘service provider’ programme, we receive regular emails with helpful trip and tricks.

This morning I received a particularly helpful email with a number of tips and tricks I was only vaguely aware of, or not aware of at all, in PhotoShop.

Tips include dealing with distortions in photographs using Puppet Warp, sharpening elements of an image without sharpening the whole image, rapidly making unwanted lines disappear, making short work of small and tedious retouching tasks and more.

To access these timesaving tips, just click here. I will publish more of these as they become available.

New design portfolio on KainosPrint web site

admin — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 05:25:51 +0000

Our wonderful designer, Dragan Djuric, has created a new design portfolio for us, utilising work he has created for us over the last six and a half years, and incorporating other work he has done.

The portfolio is very extensive and covers a wide variety of products. It consists of a moving ribbon of images down the bottom of the portfolio. If you move your cursor to the right, the images move along fast. Move the cursor to the left, and the images move backwards quickly. Keep the cursor in the middle and the action is slow, enabling you to easily make a choice, click on the choice, and see the larger image.

Dragan’s design prices are extremely reasonable. They are listed on the second page of the portfolio. One of his greatest assets is that he understands a brief very well, and does not insert his own ego into the design!

Check out his portfolio by clicking here.

HP appoints Whitman CEO as Apotheker ousted

admin — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 05:47:08 +0000

HP has confirmed that former eBay head Meg Whitman has been appointed as president and chief executive officer following the departure of Leo Apotheker after just 10 months in the role.

Speculation surrounding Apotheker’s departurehad been rife during the past few days with the HP board reacting following investor criticism of Apotheker’s plan to migrate from hardware to focus on software and services.

Through the shake-up, Ray Lane moves from non-executive chairman to executive chairman of the board of directors, with the board intending to appoint a lead independent director.Lane said the company was “fortunate to have someone of Meg Whitman’s calibre and experience step up to lead HP”.

He added: “We are at a critical moment and we need renewed leadership to successfully implement our strategy and take advantage of the market opportunities ahead.

“Meg is a technology visionary with a proven track record of execution. She is a strong communicator who is customer focused with deep leadership capabilities.”

Replacing Apotheker is proving costly for HP though, with some reports suggesting his departure costing the company as much as $33m (£21.3m).

The move comes shortly after the company’s third quarter results revealed that its printing division added $6.1bn (A$6.2bn) to the IT giant’s $31.2bn net revenues, down 1% year-on-year.

Sales of its commercial presses came in at $1.3bn for the quarter ending 31 July, down 7% year-on-year and 10% sequentially, although hardware units rose 1%, and sales were marginally up for the nine months.

Trading Post returns to print with Fairfax partnership

admin — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 04:39:29 +0000

In a move that appears to be a swing away from the online and back to the increasingly unpopular print medium, the Telstra-owned Trading Post online has partnered with Fairfax Media to allow classified advertisements to appear under both banners.

Under the agreement, general classified advertising packages for Fairfax customers will now include an online presence on Trading Post online, and the classifieds sections of the media group’s 180 regional and metropolitan publications will receive the Trading Post banner head.

The new partnership will see the online classified publisher feature ads from Fairfax on its site, but its online listings will not necessarily appear in print. The Trading Post presence will merely be offered to advertisers as an additional online option.

However, CEO of marketplaces at Fairfax Media, Nic Cola, says that the company is ultimately working towards featuring Trading Post online-generated ads in its publications. These classifieds would be geographically targeted according to region.

The agreement builds upon a classified advertising deal struck between Fairfax and APN News & Media last year that saw the latter feature Fairfax’s online classified advertisement brands Domain, Drive and MyCareer in over 90 APN regional Queensland publications.

The Trading Post has been out of the print market since October 2009 after experiencing diminishing advertising revenue, but the agreement with Fairfax will see it return to the medium it first entered four decades ago.

Cola says that the partnership with the iconic Trading Post brand will allow Fairfax Media’s customers utilize the online channel and have a much greater opportunity to sell their products.

“The deal is designed to add value to our large client base,” says Cola. “Our classified advertisers were asking for a simple online presence. A lot of our clients are after multi-platform solution, customers a more sophisticated now and ask for more than one medium.

“We have over 40,000 listing and we think it will help with our customer retention and attraction. It allows us to get our clients’ ads over a much larger audience.”

The Trading Post banner will be first incorporated into Fairfax’s regional publications and will be followed, over the coming months, by its metropolitan mastheads.

Michael Paddeb, Telstra’s head of advertising network, says “the partnership between Fairfax and tradingpost.com.au ensures classified advertisers will have the best of both worlds, with publications that engage with local communities combined with the extensive reach of Australia’s leading classified website.”

Article courtesy of Print 21 Online