Top 16 pre-media firms in India

Honeycomb creative support

Honeycomb has been winner of the PrintWeek India Award for Creative Repro Company of the Year 2010 and 2011. It’s clientele includes brand-names like Ogilvy and Mather, Foley Designs, Why Axis, 1000 Suns, Tanishq, Bosch and Wipro among others. Honeycomb exemplifies the art of managing colour. Partners Noufel and Shibu started the company with Rs 10 lakh working capital.

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Jasra

Traditional pre-press bureau that grew in size and stature. A good team which has  the self-taught Ravi Jasra at the helm. From pre-media to digital UV to exports to the Middle East, UK and Switzerland. The address says 007, Prabhadevi Industrial Estate, and the approach is pretty James Bond-like. Meant to shake and stir you. Ravi Jasra is a collector of old books, furniture, photographs  and new ideas.

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Unique Photo offset

The pioneers of colour separation, retouching, system work and proofs. Ashok Nerker has interests in Gulf Scan in Sharjah which offers everything from gravure cylinder making, premium packaging (offset), flexo, digital, wide-format, creative repro ...

All of us have been rapped on the knuckles by Ashok Nerker for faulty trapping and moiré. And endless debates about wet proof v/s dry proof. Unique offers an array of solutions in Mumbai.

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Vee Pee Graphic

A flexo service bureau with a difference, Vee Pee stands out as a one-stop- shop for all pre-press requirements. A new age player, the bureau has mastered the complex science of high definition flexo printing. Based in Bengaluru, but caters to top converters in India. Vee Pee’s founder, the late V Peethambaram was a self taught artist with entrepreneurial abilities.

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Colour Dot

The Chennai-based bureau is one of the pioneers of pre-press in the country.

Installed a CDI platesetter to produce digital flexo plates and establish itself as a market leader. Tetrapak outsourced its flexo plate requirement to Colour Dot in Chennai because it is not a unit that simply does step and repeat operations in the name of pre-press. The senior Bakshi is called the father of flexo and has given everyone who is anyone, a crash course on flexo press curves, process colour angles and line screens.

Trigon Digital Solutions

Next-gen proofing method ensures product mock ups from laminating to metallised foils to polypropylene substrates. Partners Anil and Milind are passionate about the solutions they provide and get involved to explore this technology. Milind Deshpande, partner at Trigon is the brother of Makrand Deshpande, a well-known actor, writer and director in Bollywood.

Comart Lithographers

Pioneers of block-making in India. Today, the Poonawalas provide integrated services that include design, pre-press, print and data management. PrintWeek India Award winner for Pre-Press Company of the Year 2010. 450 people in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Gurgaon dedicated to 3D visualisation, digital asset management. A training centre for high-end print applications – plus an obsession with colour. Comart’s Fred Poonawala is a top gun at the All India Federation of Master Printers, and a Playstation geek.

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With increase in brand activity from consumer clients, as well as promotional activity from advertising and retail clients, global giants like Schawk, Alia and Eon Premedia are in India. The Schawk team in Chennai (in the picture) is building on the firm’s heritage all over the world. Schawk aims to bring a more powerful digital marketing capability to its clients in India. When we spoke to its unit head, we were informed: “Schawk’s structure, positioning and global footprint gives Indian customers the opportunity to apply our strategic and creative capabilities across a far greater spectrum of consumer interactions. It also enables us to compete on a much larger playing field and to leverage our expertise for the benefit of our clients.” Today, all three companies are enhancing their client’s digital marketing capability across web, mobile and social media – and heralding expansion into new channels beyond their specialist packaging background.

Numex Blocks

Equipped with latest technology for pre-press in flexography. Houses equipment from three major pre-media solution providers: EskoArtwork and Dupont for conventional and Kodak for digital flexography. The owner Nitin Patil, is one of the first flexo evangelists in India, to whom the upcoming flexo printers turn to for advice.

It was the first pre-press house in India to go digital in pre-press flexography.

Mumbai-based Numex Blocks recently installed the CDI Advance Cantilever 1450 with HD Flexo technology the first of its kind in South Asia. With this, Numex Blocks will be able to provide flexo print firms across India the high quality level that was achievable in offset or gravure. With the capability of the CDI Cantilever to image both plates and sleeves, the company is gearing up for the requirements of tomorrow's flexo market.

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Express KCS

It is India’s largest independently owned pre-press house. Design and layout, high-end imaging, knowledge and creative services. For a company with 450 permanent staff that counts upwards of 500 newspapers among its clients, it maintains a very low profile. The company’s origins lie in the hand-carving of wood blocks for poster advertising in the 1940s.

Color Dots Prepress Studio

Owned by Tarun Chopra, India’s first and the world’s 56th Ugra certified PSO compliant pre-press service provider. The firm is geared to set an example with standardisation and process control for design agencies, print suppliers and print buyers. Tarun has spent 17 years of his life grappling with the science of printing.

At PrintWeek India Awards 2012, the pre-press company won the Pre-Press Company of the Year 2012. This honour recognises Color Dot’s financial performance, its innovations and long-term success opportunities. This is the first PrintWeek India Award for the company. The company situated in the Okhla Industrial Area boasts of solid financial returns during 2011-12 on capital employed and a net profit that is pegged at 44.59% and 8.46%, respectively. That’s not all. It has also reported a current ratio of 1.54:1 in this year. Established in 2003, has grown from a film service provider to offer complete pre-press solutions. In the next four years, the company added digital proofing and CTP services to its offering. Today, the company has a staff of 15 and its head, Chopra is India’s second Ugra certified expert for PSO with experience for setting-up printing presses for compliance to international printing standards. Chopra believes quality pre-press service can assure you the three ‘R’ factors. “Reduce press downtime due to inconsistent imaged plates; reduce press downtime due to inconsistent data handling; and reduce press downtime due to inconsistent colour management issues.” He advises printers to use their presses to do something that it is supposed to do – Print.

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Aptara

Formerly known as Techbooks, the company has operations in New Delhi, Pune, Dehradun and Kerala for digital e-book conversion and publishing. Headquartered in Virginia, Aptara reveals the change in the digital publishing space. From annual reports, policies and procedures, training material, marketing collateral, technical documentation, sales literature, analysts’ reports, newsletters, white papers, and presentations—basically any content can be presented in e-book format. Dev Ganesan, president and CEO of Aptara, has a history of operational and financial successes in managing technology companies in the Silicon Valley.

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Shilp Gravures

Founded in 1995, the Gujarat-based Shilp Gravures is a top brand name in the gravure industry. Set up a flexo plate processing unit which produced photopolymer plates up to 42x60 inch – becoming the first to produce this size (perhaps) the largest available in South Asia. Made a bang during its debut at Drupa 2004. Has a stall at the show in 2012 to tap exports. Founder Ambar Patel had a foresight about the gravure industry in India. He began operations in 1989 as an engraving house, when gravure industry in India was in its infancy.

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Vakil & Sons

Vakil is the Indian affiliates of Bowne & Co (now part of RR Donnelly), the world’s leading financial communication firm since 1994. Equipped for e-publishing and print media. Vakil reigned supreme in greeting cards, annual reports and commercial printing for decades. Vakil houses a bookshop which displays children literature in its premises in Mumbai.

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Alia

A part of prestigious ACCL Group, ALIA has two production centres in India, capacity of 60,000 artworks annually, over 10 years of experience in the packaging pre-media space working with blue chip clients like Unilever, General Mills, Kimberly Clarke, ITC the most trusted partner when it comes to outsourcing pre-media. Specialised production teams headed by the deputy general manager Vijay Jobanputra for various printing processes like gravure and flexo, trained under the team leaders who come with more than 20 years of real life print experience Being the largest pre-media organisation in India, in the packaging landscape defines ‘Packaging Premedia’ with its unique model of business. India’s only organisation with a G7 certification.

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Healing Tool / Majik Touch

Established in 2008 by Chitrabalu. The unit is equipped with 8 mac loaded with complete Adobe software. The company has seven staff. Chitrabalu has worked at Comart Lithographers both in Mumbai and Bengaluru. He got a good opportunity in Dubai where he worked for two years and came back to India and started Healing Tool.  Majik Touch is sister company which is also involved in pre-press activities. With the turnover of Rs 50 lakh, Healing Tool caters to agencies like Mccanne, Mudra, Low Lintas, O&M, Grey and Push among others.

The pre-press firm recently bagged the PrintWeek India Creative Repro company of the Year 2012. The firm also undertook a challenging job of Britania Pure Majic. The art work was not supplied by the agency and this scenario Healing Tool managed to create the job using all the data it had in its archive. This job was supplied by Macan.

Besides Mac’s the pre-press firm is equipped with EFI software for proofing and Epson proofer.

According to Chitrabalu, the agencies trust Healing Tool and Majik Touch for its ability to cater to the complex and difficult pre-press activities.

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