Prime Group Invests in Brand New HP Indigo Technology

LONDON, England, 1st July 2008 – HP today announced that Prime Group has invested in an HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press, making it one of the first companies to purchase the equipment in the UK.

The deal was signed at drupa, and demonstrates Prime’s commitment to investing in leading technology. Based in Nottingham, Prime has operated a digital printing department for almost five years and has been an HP Indigo press user from the start. The company produces a wide range of commercial products for its blue-chip customers, specialising in complex variable data print (VDP) and unusual short-run applications such as personalised books and high-quality calendars.

Prime’s HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press will be optimised for production by a new workflow solution, the HP SmartStream Production Pro Print Server. This system will enable the company to scale-up production, and facilitates the addition of presses to the centralised workflow network in the future. Due to the large amount of VDP work the company processes Prime decided to invest in an enhanced RIP from HP to ensure that high volumes of data are processed quickly and efficiently.

“Our HP Indigo presses have had significant impact on our bottom line over the last five years and we believe the key to a successful future lies in the continued investment in new technology from HP Indigo,” said Jon Tolley, director, Prime Group. “The new press will allow us to produce more work, at greater speeds and higher quality, but delivering a lower cost per page. It makes perfect business sense to us. Not only can we produce more complex work for our customers, we can also pass the financial benefits down the supply chain.”

The new HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press will enable Prime to move into new markets such as high-quality direct mail and expand its existing portfolio of products in the marketing collateral, personalisation and book areas. The company recently worked with personalisation specialists, Penwizard, to produce a series of personalised Noddy books for HarperCollins on its existing HP Indigo press. The complexity of the data and image quality required to maintain brand integrity was of vital importance to the project.

“Harper Collins and Penwizard have been so impressed with the quality of the Noddy books that they have commissioned three major new brands for launch in 2008. When our HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press is installed we will move these applications to the press, ensuring that our customer is receiving products of the highest possible quality,” said Tolley.

“The company’s continued investment in HP Indigo presses stems from our desire to constantly improve and innovate our product offerings and services to our customers. Prime has won two awards for product innovation in the last year and we intend to use our new digital press to win many more in the coming years.”

The new press will installed later this year to operate alongside Prime’s other digital press, an HP Indigo press 5000.

www.primegroup.co.uk

THE DIGITAL PRINTING WORLD IS YOUR OYSTER

The world of printing has come a very long way from mid-1400s when the first printing presses using metal plates came to the fore – although significant developments had been made many centuries before.

In 868 the Chinese had developed a process of printing with wooden blocks and in 1242 the Koreans produced the first book using moveable type. During the 1300s, the first paper mills were seen in France and Germany, and by the end of the century Korea had produced bronze type.

Prior to the emergence of the printing press the only method of reproducing the written word involved teams of scribes that would spend their entire lives copying out the most important manuscripts of the day, mainly the Bible and religious texts.

Today, it is inconceivable that printing was ever such a complicated and time-consuming process that progressed from people copying words to the skilled typesetters who were made redundant with the advent on the word processor.

In 1985 everything changed almost overnight; suddenly you no longer needed any grounding in the world of printing to be able to produce quality printed material. Although printing plates still had to be made to complete the job, all the typesetting was now done on screen.

The rate of change that has been brought about by the word processing and desktop publishing has been enormous; whilst it took over 1,000 years to move from making printing blocks by hand to using computers for typesetting, it has taken a blink of an eye to take us into a new world of digital printing.

Now, with the developments in digital printing there are virtually no limits to what can be produced – combined with significantly reduced timescales not possible with litho printing – with the sophistication of personalisation, documents can easily be tailored to an audience of one.

Digital printing is now firmly established as a force in the printing industry and it’s a technology that has been totally embraced by Nottinghamshire-based Prime Group. With digital printing delivering as close to litho quality as possible digital processes are being improved upon all the time.

Although the Prime Group continues to invest in litho printing machinery, the company hasn’t become complacent in the fast moving, dynamic world of digital printing.

It is its sheer flexibility and opportunities for creativity that are some of the main strengths of digital printing. Until the advent of digital printing there simply wasn’t the ability to produce individual print items that can be totally personalised. For truly memorable and high impact marketing and sales promotion campaigns, that incorporate personalisation, the impact on the recipient is dramatic – with demonstrable benefits over non-personalised marketing campaigns.

To maximise the benefits of digital technologies, Prime Group has developed a wide range of creative services that allows companies to personalise as much or as little as required. With variable data printing it is possible to seamlessly combine a variety of text and image options to produce individually personalised printed material. With variable data printing it is possible to have several levels of personalisation – from being able to have unique names and addresses on each item of print, through to being able to produce material appropriate to a specific location, gender or age of the recipients.

With Prime Group’s unique One to One Marketing process you can tailor every aspect of a campaign’s message to a particular individual. In today’s world where there is so much information bombarding individuals it is only the highly personalised material that has a real chance of making its mark and converting that attention-grabbing mailer into sales.

Personalisation can be taken even further with Image Personalisation – a unique way of personalising photography and images, and communicating with customers in a dynamic and highly personalised way. Individual names can be incorporated into headlines, photography and imagery that captivate the recipients’ attention.

The ultimate in flexibility is On-demand Printing, which gives clients the opportunity to print one-off items as and when needed. On-demand printing is extremely quick to set up, it reduces stock levels, reduces waste from unused products, literature is always up to date and print can be targeted to an individual.

Prime Group has even taken personalisation one stage further as they are now producing personalised books featuring a famous children’s character. With their innovative solution for personalised printing the company was selected from many leading print houses across the UK to be awarded this unique contract for which they print books that feature the names and cartoon images of the children for whom they are intended as gifts.

With digital printing there are virtually no limits to what can be achieved and thanks to the Prime Group the world of digital printing is your oyster – no matter what colour you might want it.

http://www.primegroup.co.uk/

Digital Printing in Nottingham

Digital printing in Nottingham, as with the rest of the UK, is becoming increasingly competitive with more and more traditional Printers acquiring digital presses to cater for the demand in the marketplace for short print run and variable data printing.

In Nottingham Digital Printing companies have found that they can cater for companies who require the ability to create sections of a job that vary from page to page. An example of this would be a phone bill in which your name, account number, address, etc are printed on the bill. Many digital printers can pull this information from a database and incorporate it into a job. This is possible because, unlike other print processes, a digital printers image carrier is imaged on a page by page basis. This cannot be done on an offset press where permanent plates are fixed to a drum. In Nottingham Digital Printing companies have found that their customers benefit from the fact that digital printing requires very little prepress time and provides the ability to easily edit a job.

In Nottingham digital printing companies such as Prime Litho Print Services has invested heavily in the technology and resources to meet consumer demand for digital print services. This investment has established them as a major provider of print services; a one stop shop for all your printing needs. To find out more about the services they provide visit their website www.primegroup.co.uk or call 0800 542 9166.

The Complexities of Variable Data Printing Made Easy

The complexity of the variable data files handled by Prime Litho Printing Services in 2006, revealing their expertise and technical know-how, has established them as a world leader.

No longer are companies satisfied with corporate gifts simply featuring their corporate branding, advances in digital printing have opened up the opportunities for engaging with clients on a more personal level. Personalisation is becoming more intricate than ever, ranging from complex brochures tailored to the individual’s preferences throughout, to the integration of their name and preferences into an image.

A key product for Prime Litho Printing Services, and their biggest success, is their personalised calendar range, produced for the B2B market. Catering to individual companies needs has included designing and setting up bespoke websites allowing recipients to order their own calendar, starting it on their chosen month and including highlighted dates personally selected by them. This calendar also included a special birthday cake with their name on it on the month of their birth.

The fact that these calendars can be easily produced using any language has generated interest worldwide from Qatar to Brazil to Japan. This coupled with the extent to which these calendars can be made personal to the recipient, as well as the sender, has established this product range as a ‘must have’ in the promotional merchandise arena, as recognised by the British Promotional Merchandise Association (BPMA) at a recent awards ceremony where it was short-listed for the Most Innovative Product award.

Beyond the corporate calendar range, Prime Litho Printing Services produce bespoke personalised mailers. An ongoing contract with a major blue chip company encompasses the production of a barcoded mailer linked to a database containing 35 variable data fields each variable containing up to 145 different possibilities for the targeted audience’s preferences. This allows the company to engage directly with over 15,000 people, tailoring promotions and products to each individual recipient in a single print run.

Digital printing has become the most popular and fastest growing medium over the past 12 months due to it’s speed, quality and return on investment. As experts in the management and execution of variable data printing and image personalisation Prime Litho Printing Services provide consultative advice to their clients, encompassing data manipulation and the best ways to get maximum impact from the application of these techniques. Their consultative approach helps to effectively manage client expectations and provide a thorough understanding of the strengths and limitations of the process making it much smoother for the client.

To see for yourself, http://www.primegroup.co.uk

44-inch Epson wide-format printer

Our latest 44-inch Epson wide-format printer incorporates breakthrough 8-colour ink technology, resulting in a final print of uncompromising quality. The new Ink technology used in this printer has a 3 level black system which dramatically raises the bar for professional colour and black-and-white prints.

Capable of handling virtually any media type, in roll or cut-sheet, up to 44-inch wide, we have once again set the standard for professional media use. Whether you’re producing sellable colour, black and white photography, fine art reproduction, or colour accurate proofs for client approvals, the Epson 9800 is the machine for the job.

To see for yourself, http://www.primelitho.co.uk/epson9800.htm

Directsmile Version 3

After months of development with our German partners, we can proudly announce we are now running the very latest version of our image personalisation software to give us the ability to add multiple fields and effects into 1 image.
This adds a new dimension to our personalisation software and examples of this working can be seen here. Never before have creative professionals had such a powerful tool allowing them to produce their vision without compromise.

To see Direct Smile for yourself, http://www.primelitho.co.uk/direct-smile.htm

Direct Smile technology provided by Prime Litho.

The very best direct marketing enables a business to appeal to its existing and prospective customers on an emotional level by making them feel special and giving them something to smile about. If this is the standard of marketing that you and your business are searching for then let us introduce you to Direct Smile technology provided by Prime Litho.

Direct Smile is an application that enables you to transform a standard direct mailing into something so extraordinary that it is guaranteed to create a reaction. Direct Smile can personalise every single mailing by gender, images, name, address and content to the extent that every piece of literature becomes as individual as the customer it’s targeting.

Personalised photography and images allow you to speak to your customers and business partners in an exclusive, original and fun way. Individual names are incorporated into headlines, photography and imagery making every customer feel recognised and appreciated. The process is fully automated and can be produced in any size of print run. Names are taken directly from your customer databases and integrated into the layouts using a suitable font.

Combine Direct Smile with individualised offers, giveaways and invitations for a truly exclusive product. Eye-catching and fresh, Direct Smile is idea for direct mail campaigns, customer loyalty schemes, client birthday promotions or any other occasion that demands an individual mail message.

The beauty of Direct Smile is that is allows you to interact emotionally with your customers in a way that is guaranteed to raise a smile and encourage a positive response. It pays off too as Direct Smile’s response levels, recall rates and acceptance levels will give you a clear advantage over conventional dialogue marketing methods.

To see Direct Smile for yourself, http://www.primelitho.co.uk/direct-smile.htm