Digital print

Greeting cards designed and in NZ and printed sustainably by Soar

Image Gallery is a New Zealand success story; a local company using Kiwi imagery for greeting cards that stand out for their superior design, great ideas and sustainability.

The greeting card industry in New Zealand is strong with a good outlook. Millennials are communicating more than any generation before them. While they use digital devices for day-to-day communication, special occasions are more likely to be marked with a carefully chosen card and a handwritten message.

New Zealand greeting card companies are competing with the world

In the NZ greeting card market, Image Gallery’s main competitors are small importers of niche cards sourced from the UK, Europe and the US, as well as large firmsthat print and manufacture their own. Image Gallery is one of a handful of companies that design, print and distribute greeting cards locally.

“Publishing local content is an important part of our product mix. There are so many talented Kiwi artists and designers creating not only great art, but great commercially viable art that our customers are looking for. To then have that art printed in NZ on sustainable card stock finishes the story,” says Edward Robinson, general manager of Image Gallery.

Cost-effective short runs of greeting card printing

To ensure their greeting card products are profitable, Image Gallery has to make every print run as economical as possible. Quality and a quick turnaround are two other must-haves.

“The trusted relationship we have with Soar has helped us to learn and understand the whole print process, from quoting to setting up files, including how we can best configure the layups to make the most out of a print run, “says Kember Snaith, graphic designer at Image Gallery.

Soar has also streamlined the print ordering service to create a simplified process for managing Image Gallery’s complicated requirements. The icing on the cake is continual sourcing of attractive card stocks that are derived from responsibly managed forests. Soar is accredited with both the Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC) and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC).

Environmentally-responsible stocks and vegetable inks

FSC is a non-governmental organisation that promotes the responsible management of the world's forests. We were the first printer in NZ to be certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. PEFC is an international non-profit, organisation dedicated to sustainable forest management. We are certified by PEFC, the world's largest forest certification system.

At Soar Print we also use vegetable based inks, rather than traditional petroleum inks. Derived from corn, walnut, coconut, linseed, canola and soya beans, vegetable inks release significantly fewer VOCs into the atmosphere during the drying process. We’re also able to use water-based products to clean the press after production, rather than solvents. What’s more, stripping ink from paper during the paper recycling process is much easier with vege inks and produces less hazardous waste.

Take a look at Image Gallery greeting cards

Read more about Soar’s sustainability credentials

Printing Jan Hellriegel's Sportsman of the Year CD cover and book

Jan Hellriegel and Soar Print go way back. Nothing makes us happier than helping one of New Zealand’s leading musicians bring her print creations to life. Jan’s latest print production, Sportsman of the Year – A Suburban Philosophy, involved printing a CD cover and a book.

Jan is a New Zealand legend; a songwriter/performer/businesswoman that we’re proud to call our own. Sportsman of the Year is her 4^th studio album, but it’s the first to include a book of true-life short stories. With 12 chapters that spin the tales behind the album’s songs, Jan describes it as a ‘musical in a book’.

The book sprang from the album project when Jan realised the new songs were driven by real-life stories. She decided to write the stories that inspired the album, so that the stories would enhance the music and vice versa. The overall theme is about following your dreams and never giving up.

Jan’s songs and stories are a memoir that touches many aspects of her rollercoaster life – growing up in West Auckland, student days, relationships, playing with her band Cassandra’s Ears and her solo career. The book has an easy-reading, conversational tone, while the songs are more refined and poetic.

The name of the project refers to how Jan won the Sportsman of the Year cup at Rangeview Intermediate when she was 12. Back then, she felt she didn't deserve the award and says the album is "calling that 12-year-old back to claim her prizes with pride and without reservation".

Launched on Mother’s Day 12 May, Sportsman of the Year – A Suburban Philosophy is available from Jan’s online store. You can buy the book, the CD or a package that includes both.

Find out more about Soar’s book printing capabilities.

Project facts

Produced on Océ VarioPrint i300 print-on-demand digital press
Foiled matt laminate covers
PUR bound (a form of perfect binding)
First 500 limited edition copies were sequentially numbered

Printing for events that want a smaller carbon footprint

As with many festivals and conferences these days, Techweek19 wanted a small-as-possible carbon footprint. Soar helped them to achieve this with carboNZero printing as a service.

As organisers of New Zealand’s premier festival of innovation, the Techweek team leads by example. They recognise that they can influence others to make responsible decisions about things like print services. That’s why the chose to work with Soar Print. We are the only printing company in New Zealand certified to offer carbon zero services and products under Enviro-Mark Solution’s carboNZero scheme, which exceeds international standards and best practice for a carbon programme.

How carbon neutral printing as a service is done

To provide carbon neutral printing as a service, our in-house expert calculates the carbon inputs associated with paper, waste, finishing, transport and the electricity used by the printing technology. Once the carbon footprint of the print job is known, offsets can be purchased. Soar chooses to buy carbon offsets from New Zealand providers, such as forest regeneration schemes and windfarms. They cost more than some overseas schemes, but the benefits to New Zealand are greater.

By working with us, clients like TechWeek can use the carboNZero brand on their collateral to demonstrate their commitment to environmentally responsible practices. It reflects well on their brand, plus it exposes the concept of carbon neutral printing to other businesses.

For TechWeek19, Soar produced a wide range of printed collateral, including posters, banners, signage, display cubes, name tags and lanyards. Every element in the print mix qualified as a carbon neutral print service.

There’s still time to get to a TechWeek19 event near you

Now in its third year, Techweek aims to inspire and build capability for all New Zealanders by providing a week-long, nationwide opportunity for connection, cross-pollination and learning about all things techy. There are workshops, labs, demonstrations, panel discussions and much more. You don’t need to be a tech person to attend; you just have to be interested in the future of New Zealand and finding local answers to global challenges.

Techweek’s vision is for New Zealand to be globally recognised as a beautiful country where world-leading solutions are born. It’s not just about showcasing leading edge technology, but amplifying brilliant ideas that are solving the biggest global challenges – innovation that’s good for the world.

Visit the Techweek website to find events happening in your city.

Find out more about sustainable printing with Soar.

Capturing kids’ lyrical brilliance with the Play It Strange book

Recently Soar Arts printed an amazing book for one of our favourite not-for-profit clients. It’s the 2018 lyric book for Play it Strange, which captures the 16 original songs written by young New Zealanders during last year’s Lion Foundation Songwriting Competition.

It was a pleasure to help Mike Chunn and his team put this book together. The Soar Arts team was even involved with doing the artwork, following a template created by the Play It Strange graphic designer.

Every double page spread of the book shows an introduction written by the songwriter, then the lyrics of their song. Professional recordings of the songs can be heard at www.playitstrange.bandcamp.com

“Songs written by young NZers forge a communal strand, a national voice, a summation of who they are and with that, it’s clear that they are telling us who we are. Listening to the hundreds of songs that we receive at Play It Strange is like opening a window into the hearts and minds of our youth. And there is much to learn.” Mike Chunn, CEO, Play it Strange.

We produced the book on our new Océ VarioPrint i300, which is based at Fusion Print in Hamilton (a member of the Soar Printing Group). With this amazing piece of printing technology, you can literally touch one button and have a fully-formed book come out the other end of the press. It can fold and stitch (staple) a book in a way that creates a square spine up to 10mm wide – up to 180 pages plus a cover. Your get a perfect bound book, but without the high price that usually comes with perfect binding. For small runs (1 to 2000) it’s a cost-effective way to get a high quality result.

The book was also produced as a Partica digital flipbook. The ability to produce electronic versions of printed books is an important part of Soar Arts capability.

View a Partica flipbook of the lyric book.

Find out more about Play It Strange

Learn about the Océ VarioPrint i300 for book printing.

Here’s an excerpt from the song ‘Dinner Plate’ written by Tara Canton of Chilton St James School, Wellington.

Honestly, isn’t it so strange how her

battery has become so low so suddenly

and how she hates the sight of cutlery, lately.

Red-rimmed eyes become more waterfilled

the more time flies, I notice her jeans have

gone down in size and how she never comes to meal times.

Pins and needles in her arms and legs

cotton wool stuffed in her head

flippin’ through these old magazines

she sees beauty but all I see…….

Are these pretty girls with parasols

picture perfect Barbie dolls,

skeletons at the table tasting lettuce leaves

although they’re craving

sea salt, crinkle cut, whiskey in a sippy cup

Beautiful ground-level Britomart artwork printed by Soar

If you’re strolling around Auckland’s CBD this January, direct your feet to the Britomart precinct to see the artwork of Charlotte Graham. Installed on the ground, it was printed by Soar.

The artwork, known as Te Waiora, consists of 24 hand-painted water droplets, many of them inscribed with Maori motifs. The droplets have been materialised as 1200 self-adhesive decals, which you can see applied to walkways throughout Britomart. Te Waiora will remain in place until the end of January 2019.

Charlotte created the artwork to emphasise Christmas as a time of connectedness between whanau and friends; people and the land; past, the present and future. She chose water as a motif because of the way it refers to the maritime histories of Maori, Pakeha and Pacific peoples, as well as Aotearoa’s more recent immigrants. In the Maori language, wai means ‘water’ and ora means ‘life’.

The droplets were printed with UV-resistant latex inks on two specialist anti-slip self-adhesive products, to allow for different surfaces, using our new HP Latex R2000 digital press. This same press is often used to print vinyl car wraps, bespoke adhesive wall murals, point of sale materials and signage. It can print both on roll and rigid substrates up to 50mm thick and boasts the smoothest white ink laydown available in New Zealand today.

To find out more about reproducing artwork onto self-adhesive or other materials, email Brian Landry at brianl@soarprint.co.nz

Three containers, eight engineers, one almighty printer!

Things have been fizzing at Fusion Print, Soar’s sister company in Hamilton. Earlier this year, Fusion took delivery of three containers full of state-of-the-art digital print technology – the Océ VarioPrint i300…unassembled. Then it was simply a matter of putting it together.

Shortly after the containers arrived, eight engineers from Holland, Australia and New Zealand arrived at Fusion to begin the assembly and deployment process. The crates had to be carefully unpacked and every component checked before installation could begin. From end-to-end, the process took five weeks. Graeme Foote, general manager at Fusion, says it was fascinating to watch.

“We created a time-lapse video of the install and it’s compulsive viewing. Watching this monster digital press come to life was extraordinary over five weeks, but it’s even more amazing when you watch the whole process in four minutes!”

The end result is a printer that’s 16 metres long and 2.6 metres tall – longer than the average city bus and nearly as high. Already it’s pulling its weight at Fusion. The press was available for duty from March 22^nd and has completed several multi-page print jobs.

“Fred Soar and I first saw the i300 on a business trip to Holland last year. We were impressed by its ability to produce exceptionally high-quality digital print outputs – sheets go in one end, and a fully-finished brochure or book pops out the other end.

“At the time we agreed that if Océ could ensure our machine would produce that quality, we’d be happy. As it turns out, the quality we’re getting is even better than what we saw in Holland – our i300 is over-delivering!”

So what’s so special about this multi-million-dollar machine? Quite a lot! The Océ VarioPrint i300 is a next-generation sheet-fed digital press that revolutionises the printing of multi-page outputs.

You can literally press one button and have a fully-formed book come out the other end of the press.
Every output can be different, because the press accepts variable data. For example, you can print a personalised brochure or catalogue for a high-value customer, changing out text and images wherever you like.
For small runs (1 to 2000) it’s a cost-effective way to get a high quality result.
The i300 can fold and stitch (staple) a book in a way that creates a square spine up to 10mm wide – up to 180 pages plus a cover. Your get a perfect bound book, but without the high price that usually comes with perfect binding.

Talk to Graeme Foote about printing with the Océ VarioPrint i300 – call 027 2959224 or email graeme@fusionprint.co.nz

Watch the time lapse video of installation.

Free Techweek workshop about turning print into web apps

We’re running a Techweek workshop to show you how Realview's Partica seamlessly turns print PDFs into web content. You’ll also find out about the new syndication marketplace it makes possible.

The workshop will be introduced and moderated by Russell Brown, esteemed digital journalism innovator and founding board member of the Digital Media Trust. He’ll be supported by Realview CEO Richard Lindley and Soar’s own print-to-digital specialist, Stuart Shepherd. There are only 60 places available, so be quick!

Workshop: Partica: seamless print-to-web publishing and syndication

Where: The GridAKL, 12 Madden Street

When: Wednesday 23 May

Time: 2pm to 3pm

Register online now

More about Techweek

Introduction to the Partica workshop

Publishers are sitting on huge quantities of evergreen content – locked up in PDFs that have never been seen online. What if there was a simple, cost-effective way to find, extract, organise and monetise that content? There is. Welcome to Partica by Realview Technologies.

Partica's direct-to-mobile digital publishing platform instantly closes the gap between print and digital, transforming your PDFs into articles and delivering them to mobile, tablet, and desktop. Its unique AI-driven search and discovery engine finds, sorts and reports existing digital content from PDFs (or from a website, CMS or RSS feed).

Those capabilities underpin a new business platform: Partica Content Marketplace. Think of it as like a stock image library, only for articles. Partica Content Marketplace is a working syndication platform that brings together publishers, writers and customers in a world that's crying out for content.

TARGET AUDIENCE

People and businesses with new and legacy content to sell, plus businesses that need easy, effective and transparent access to high-quality content for digital publication.