GEON Advance Press Takes Out Top National Print Award

GEON Advance Press in Perth was awarded the coveted Heidelberg Award for Excellence in Craft at this year's National Print Awards for its production of a photographic book, "Kids of Perth".

The 224 page, A4 landscape book, which also won Gold in the case bound book category, was produced on the company's Heidelberg XL105-5 colour press. 

GEON Advance Press General Manager Ian Smith was delighted with the win commenting that "to take out the highest print award in the country is a great honour and one that will be celebrated with our entire team."

Smith said producing the 500 run job on the XL105-5 using Heidelberg's Image Control ensured the quality of colour and consistency of the images throughout the publication.  The book was produced using four colour process with a varnish on 170gsm Euro matt stock.

"This job had one unique design feature - a green parchment pattern that appeared on each page.  It was essential the green was spot on throughout the book and the colour in the photographs still full and the images clear. That's where Heidelberg's Image Control comes into its own and was a huge advantage for us." 

"The advanced technology of Image Control combined with the XL105 enabled us to produce a book of great quality. In the past ensuring colour consistency of the parchment feature in four colour process on a book of this size would have caused a printer real headaches. Now for us it is a very straightforward job."

Image Control reads the image in order to control the colour density on the sheet which removes any room for error.   "When you are doing a small run like this on a press as fast as the XL105 you have little opportunity to change the colour."

"We have a couple of make ready run downs - transfer the Image Control data to the press where the colour is adjusted to match the first printed sheet - and then away we go!  With Image Control you don't have to worry about colour management because it does it for you. Of course you still need a top operator to manage the process."

Smith continued. "We didn't pay this job any special attention in pre-press because we knew with the combination of CtP, the press, Image Control and our operator the job would come out perfectly.  And it did."

GEON Advance Press installed the XL105-5 in August 2006 and hasn't looked back. "We are always confident that when we put a job on this press it will achieve the result we want.  It is a very, very good press and has made a significant impact on productivity."

In conclusion Smith said it is very rewarding "to have been acknowledged at a national level by our peers as the best entrant in the National Print Awards.  Winning the Heidelberg Excellence in Craft Award is an achievement the whole GEON Group can be proud of."

Photograph:
(l-r) Ian Smith, General Manager GEON Advance Press, with Andy Vels Jensen, Managing Director, Heidelberg Australia/New Zealand

Further Information:
Melanie Dooley
Marketing Coordinator
Tel: +61 3 9263 3390
Email: melanie.dooley@heidelberg.com