Ecover, the pan-european based cleaning products manufacturer continues to support Four Corners and our Responsible Print initiative. In May the directors of Four Corners were taken on a tour of their Boulogne-based manufacturing plant – which must be one of the most environmentally friendly factories in Europe. Recent jobs have included the production of nearly a million on product neck-hangers, produced to the exacting standards of Responsible Print and were printed on a specially sheeted size of board, on stock containing 55% recycled content.

The second edition of The Book of Green – the directory for “green” and ethical suppliers has also just been produced, for the first time this was also produced in line with Responsible Print and was printed on Cyclus Offset – a 100% recycled stock.

Those of you that ventured to the UK’s largest print exhibition, IPEX, in May could not have helped notice the amount of space devoted to digital printing. This area of print is growing massively with technical developments occurring on an almost weekly basis! This has been reflected in an increase in the number of digital jobs that Four Corners has produced in recent months. The increased versatility in the  the digital technology can offer has enabled us to produce a wide range of products including short-run, bespoke packaging, paper over board binders, company reports, luggage tags, tenders etc etc.

The newly introduced Colourspace photographic printing side of our business produced numerous prints for several exhibitors at the Brighton Festival including the complete portfolio for the short-listed “Wet Pier” which was a photographic portfolio documenting the demise of Brighton’s infamous West Pier and its subsequent demise through the two fires and subsequent storm damage. All illustrated in photographs take from  actually in the sea by intrepid surfer/photographer Chris Beasley.

Four Corners is regularly requested to donate our services to charities. Unfortunately we do not have the resources to support every request. Every year we select certain charities to support. Previous recipients have included Brighton-based charity -  The Rockinghorse Appeal and Water Aid. This year we have donated the print for Southern Water’s Summer Ball that is benefiting the NSPCC, the RNLI and Cancer Research UK.

In truth many printers never kept the printing plates as storage and quality were an issue. Printers did, however, used to keep the film separations for around two years.

Today the situation is very different.

Films are no longer required to make the plates as this stage in the print process has been completely replaced by computerised/automated plate-making. Modern presses also have automated or semi- automated plate loading on to the press that requires pristine plates to work efficiently.

The result is that printer will now  only keep the digital files for a job and as a result, if and when a reprint is required the printer will run a “fresh” new set of plates which also ensure that the plates are clean and free of any scratches etc.

The cost savings that used to be associated with such “straight reprints” are no longer apparent. However(!) the cost savings are made when the job is first originated as the charges for films have been lost completely. If you compare the cost of printing a job today with that of a similar job, say 10 years ago, it should be a lot cheaper!

“But what about the waste of all the plates?”

I don’t know of a printer that does not recycle their plates – they are collected on a regular basis by metal recyclers who will, generally melt them down and make…. more, new printing plates.

So in answer to the question “Can you keep the plates?” is…… “No!”

The snow played its part in causing all sorts of headaches for us in the first production of Brighton’s first ARTY 100 DIRECTORY however we managed to get the launch copies to the launch party in time! The ARTY 100 DIRECTORY details the top “arty” locations including artists, photographers and print makers in Brighton and the surrounding area. The directory supplements the quarterly ARTY MAG that Four Corners also prints.

The January issue of Southern Water News was produced in line with the Responsible Print guidelines and, for the first time, carried its own unique Responsible Print reference number which enables readers to obtain a complete environmental impact report of the printed item by logging on to www.responsibleprint.info and entering the issue’s unique code. Southern Water are now looking to adopt this initiative across their printed materials.

In between all the action, we managed to get away for the Four Corners Christmas party over in….. Gibraltar! It was great to get away and enjoy the sun (a balmy 19 degrees) while production manager Neale Brodie took advantage of the cheap wine and beer…. although we somehow all managed to come back with colds and flu?!

So we are now nearly in to the second month of 2010 already with news that the “recession” is over alledgedly. Unfortunately printing companies are still closing but may be the worst is over… and Aston Villa are in the Carling Cup Final! Anyone got a spare ticket???

Brighton based Arty Magazine, launched in April this year has just published their second issue “where creativity rocks,” printed by Four Corners, the 210mm square publication focuses on the contemporary art scene in the city.  Using the latest ISO colour profiles has endured a vibrant, punchy publication!

In April Four Corners were proud to produce the Vist Brighton map for the 2nd year running. With a print run approaching hallf a million, the Visitors Map is distributed around the UK and you are sure to see  them at various points around the city. The map was again printed on Revive 100 Offset = a 100% recycled sheet.

The first annual Book of Green also came off the presses at the end of June. Printed on the re-branded Revive Pure Offset, the book is a directory of numerous environmentally minded UK companies.  For more information go to http://www.bookofgreen.co.uk/

Earlier in the Spring Four Corners produced a number of bespoke pitch documents for a London agency  including a 300 page report, covered with a lenticular map of California and packed in a bespoke box. The complete pack was produced and delivered in 72hours and contributed to the agency successfully renewing thier contract with California Tourism for another three years.

July saw Drakes Hotel, one of Brighton’s most luxurious seafront boutique hotels revamp their brochures.

Local design agency Redhead designed the new look General and Wedding Brochures and produced a stunning pair of brochures involving a mix of  great design, considered use of spot UV varnish, Hello Matt board, a special in-line matt machine coating and highly skilled printing.

Ask for more details

The increasing range and whiteness of 100% recycled papers with brand names such as Revive 100 and

9 Lives offset being regularly specified.

Now we believe that we will be one of the first companies in the UK that can offer digital proofs that are produced on  uncoated paper and are run to the ISO 12647:2 certification standard.

To maximise the quality of the reproduction we recommend that all photoshop RGB to CMYK conversions are done using the ISO Uncoated CMYK profile.

For more information – please contact Dominic Vacher on 0127 501 700 or email  on dominic@fourcornersprint.co.uk

The directory itself contains detials of 553  ethically minded organisations listed in 57 categoriesfrom all over the world.

For more information go to ethicalperformance.com

The traditional print minder will tell you that if you print on an uncoated paper the images will look flat and murky but this no longer has to be the case.

The artworker/designer has the power to influence how well the images can be reproduced on the printed sheet by using the appropiate CMYK colour separation in Photoshop. In my experience, when confronted with the colour management options in Photoshop, designers bury their head in the sand and either leave the CMYK separation as US SWOP coated (a profile used in north america) or worse still, turn it off.

CMYK profiles are available for coated, uncoated and web coated papers and using these profiles in Photoshop will greatly improve the colour reproduction of the final printed job.

Four Corners can help with clear and simple advice on how to implement a sound colour managed system and best of all, the advise is free.

The 100 page directory which is a guide to greener living in Brighton and Hove was produced in accordance with the Responsible Print criteria and was printed on 100% recycled offset paper.

For more details go to: http://www.brightongreenpages.org/what-is-the-green-pages

Responsible Print was also the choice for the 2009  Seventenths Divewear catalogue.

Printed on 9 Lives Offset, the artwork was prepared using the ISO Uncoated profile, and printed on an ISO calibrated press resulted in a stunning brochure.

A switch from silk to Howard Smith’s On Offset FSC paper was also made for the 2009 Orange Mountain Bike Catalogue – the increased bulk off the offset stock enabled the text weight to be dropped to a 120gsm, the saving allowed the budget to stretch to PUR binding the catalogue for the first time, resulting in a superior looking brochure.