Features

Are you a member of one of the UK’s local business networks?If not, perhaps you should think of joining. Other printers are and to tremendous effect.

Matthew Parker, consultant and director of Print and Procurement, provides strategic steps to help you increase print profit margins by over 12%.

What do key manufacturers have in store for us in terms of technical trends and developments in 2013? Melony Rocque-Hewitt investigates.

Melony Rocque-Hewitt finds out just what’s so intelligent about this mini-beast.

As is the case for all families, in order to understand the offspring you have to consider the parent, so before we take a closer look at Onset S20i introduced last summer, we need to look at the Onset series as a whole. 

2012 was a huge year for Hollywood Monster, formed in 2009 through the coming together of Hollywood Signs and Monster Digital. During the past year it has invested £2m in print kit, announced the formation new digital sales team and the appointment of a business development manager to generate new leads, and forecast a £1m growth in turnover to take it to £6.5m. And behind all that was a canny marketing plan that put Hollywood firmly in the limelight. So have Hollywood’s efforts paid off so far, and what are its mission targets for 2013 and beyond?

As energy bills rise Darren Riva, head of financing at the Energy Efficiency Financing scheme, explains how you can help the planet and your bottom line.

Squeezed between a sluggish economic recovery and rising electricity prices, businesses will continue to seek ways to reduce operating costs in 2013 and beyond. As a result, energy efficiency has been propelled to the forefront of the management agenda. In the energy-intensive printing industry there is significant energy saving potential. 

Melony Rocque-Hewitt finds out how Press On Digital Imaging created stunning chrome effects for a well-known London department store’s windows.

Every year during the build-up to Christmas, I would be taken to London specifically to see the Oxford and Regent Street lights and to view the glittering, fairytale shop windows of the capital’s most famous department stores. Three decades or so on, the Christmas windows beckon still, spreading their own brand of magical glamour and consumer seduction. 

Image Reports speaks to Jayson Godridge, MD, Freestyle Designs.

It’s again time for Image Reports to hand out its annual Angel Awards in recognition of products, introduced to the UK during the last year, which it considers most innovative and likely to have an impact in the wide-format sector. The winners in 2012 are…

Towards the end of January Fespa will bring its annual Global Summit to the UK. And this year, Fespa is throwing open the doors to what has previously been an ‘invite only’ event for the industry’s top brass. It’s where the great and the good meet to take the temperature of the wide-format market and discuss the way forward. So is it worth putting your hand in your pocket to get an insider’s perspective at the 2013 summit? I ask Fespa’s Duncan MacOwan, what’s in it for printers?

Grassroots players, Tim Andrews from Hollywood Monster, James Jennings from MacroArt, Nick Oakley from Media Village, Mick Barker from Novograf and Darren Marsh from OTW, discuss the findings of the annual Widthwise wide-format market survey and chew over the main issues of the day.

Melony Rocque-Hewitt looks at how this printer could grow with your business.

It is nearly two years ago now that Agfa completed  its purchase of Gandi Innovations. The sale allowed Agfa to plug an obvious hole in its hardware arsenal, and since then, the company has bought two machines to market, the development of which was well-established by Gandi and then picked up and completed by Agfa.