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SDC Reprographics expands wide format and digital business with Fujifilm
SDC Reprographics was established as a dyeline printer in Sutton, Surrey, in the late 1940s, when its main function was to reproduce architectural plans. Several decades later, in the early 1980s, the company expanded its offering by acquiring a black & white, A4 digital printing device and later diversified to a wide range of colour digital and wide-format work.
PAUL FRENCH REFLECTS ON HIS FIRST YEAR AT THE HELM OF ROBERT HORNE
Paul French, has been Managing Director of Robert Horne for one year and with the industry as a whole experiencing many challenges, how has Paul found his first year at the helm?
Roland’s VersaCAMM VS proves it’s more than just a metallic solution
The versatility of Roland’s latest VersaCAMM combination print-and-cut machines has resulted in an upsurge in end users who benefit from more than its metallic and white ink capabilities.
Necessity, the mother of invention
Over the past few weeks I had the pleasure of masterminding the design and build of two exhibition stands for a national show in London. However, there was a problem: I had only budgeted for one stand. Don’t get me wrong, the second stand was a welcome bonus, but it meant splitting the design budget in two.
R&D drives recovery
Here’s a question, what do capital equipment companies do during a recession? Well, if the screen and digital imaging industry is any measure, they innovate: and I think I know why.
Having started my own career in product design and then worked in and around the manufacturing sector I have witnessed firsthand the process capital equipment companies operate during the economic cycles. Put simply, original equipment manufacturers are duty bound to listen to their customers’ wants and need and respond by challenging their research and development departments to engineer solutions.
The magic of colour
During a recent training event I was talking to an ex cement salesman who used a picture of a brick wall to demonstrate the power of colour. The wall was an amazing mosaic of different colours and patterns. The person asked how many different coloured bricks were used in the design. Various answers came back: five, ten, twenty. The answer was actually one. Once revealed, this ‘trick of the eye’ was simple. It wasn’t the bricks that were different colours, it was the mortar.
Shop till you drop
By my own admission I'm not a great high street browser. I prefer to know exactly what I want and plan my shopping trips like a military exercises: fast in, fast out. Bluewater is my closest mega venue and I must admit that a certain restaurant has a habit of drawing me back more regularly than I would like to admit.
Bounce, dip and climb
So it looks like the rate of recession is slowing, suggesting we are approaching the bottom. The big question is where do we go from here? Political and economic commentators are debating the ‘shape' of the recovery will it be a V-shaped rapid bounce back, a W-shaped double dip recession or the slow grind of an L-shaped recovery.
Affordable quality is everything
I was walking along a busy high street a few days ago and passed a retail optician. I didn't need my eyes tested at the time, but the shop did draw my attention: unfortunately for all the wrong reasons.
Naturally, with consumers holding their cash tightly, the shop had decided to do some marketing in the form of an A-board in the middle of the pavement. However, the image itself caused some concern due to it comprising a tatty sheet of white paper, taped to the A-board and carrying a poorly hand written message scrawled in black marker pen.
Breathing space to innovate
If my past experience is anything to go by, in the run-up to a recession, manufacturers of printing equipment and consumables will be focused on market share and ‘getting product out the door'. Then the recession hits, orders slow and restructuring starts. Shop floor capacity is reduced to match demand. But what then? Hopefully outstanding innovation.
Enter the retail perpetual motion machine
Situated central to Maidstone, Canterbury and Ashford I tend share my shopping between the three. A recent outing took me to Ashford where I planned to visit Lidl and the bank. Lidl itself offers the considerable advantage of a free car park just yards from the town centre's one-way system. Hence the excellent footfall.
The power of exclusivity
I recently received a press release from a company highlighting the power of the internet compared with the demise of magazine advertising. Interestingly, the company had sent the press release to the editors of printed magazines. How I laughed at the irony.
It's show time
So the show season is upon us. In this issue alone we are previewing two exhibitions, Sign and Digital UK and Fespa Digital Europe. In today's internet dominated world, it's fascinating to see how trade magazines and exhibitions have held their own. Magazines thanks to their proactive nature, delivering new ideas to readers' desks in a way an internet search never can. Likewise, shows provide the hands-on, face-to-face environment that builds confidence between suppliers and buyers.
The power of two
When I first started editing Screen Process and Digital Imaging, some five years ago, I landed headfirst in one of the print industry's greatest debates: when would the new generation of digital print technology unseat analogue processes, namely screen?
