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PrintWeek Awards 2023: Shortlist - Packaging Company of the Year - Flexible Packaging

PrintWeek Team — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 15:25:00

Shortlist:

Meraki
Parakh Agro Industries
SB Packagings
TCPL Packaging

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Bookwatch: Aditi Maheshwari Goyal shares her favourite reads

PrintWeek India — Thu, 19 Jul 2018 11:22:00

Aditi is the director for copyrights and translation department at Vani Prakashan. It is a New Delhi-based publication house which boasts of writers with prestigious awards such as the Sahitya Akademi Award.

These are the five picks from her:

1. Arthashastra by Kautilya: An all-time masterpiece by Kautilya, this book offers an insight into the social construct of an economy. The epistemology used for defining certain key concepts like culture, society, kinship, business and family are relevant even today and inform some high profile researchers.

2. Sri Bhagwat Gita: My all-time go-to book for seeking answers and solutions to everyday life problems and larger conceptual questions. The Gita has never failed me.

3. Cobalt Blue by Sachin Kundalkar and Jerry Pinto: A story between three characters, two of whom are siblings and fall in love with the same boy, their tenant in Pune. A very modern narrative style of love and its loss. A translation masterpiece by Jerry Pinto, who makes it a beautiful book of love without any prototypes or prejudices of queer, gay or alternative sexuality literature. I have gifted about half a dozen copies of the book to my friends.

4. Hindi Mein Hum by Abhay Kumar Dubey: The book is an interesting narrative of linguistic engineering in Hindi syntax vis-a-vis the Hindi public sphere. Abhay Kumar Dubey is my favourite author for non-fiction in Hindi, and I usually keep two copies of his book on my shelf as if often gets borrowed and never returned.

5. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi: A pathbreaking graphic narrative based on the author's life from childhood in Iran to adulthood in Europe. A classic bildungsroman, this book made me realise that visual reading is the next big thing in publishing. Will be publishing its Hindi translation this year, what a high!

Video Story: EFI Fiery powers Shilp Art’s transformational short-run approach

PrintWeek India — Thu, 27 Apr 2017 11:26:56

In 2016, Shilp Art invested in a Konica Minolta C1100 to cater to the increasing demand for short-run jobs.

For Shilp differentiation was the key. Hence, it chose EFI Fiery IC-308 DFE that propels the Konica Minolta device to reproduce colours that can match the exacting standards of Shilp Art and its customers.

Sagar Nanavati, director, Shilp Art, said, “On the scale of 10, I will give 9.5 ratings to EFI Fiery. That’s because EFI Fiery has not only provided us with differentiation in the market but also added value to the business.”

Video Story: Fujifilm expands the possibilities for Indot

PrintWeek India — Tue, 18 Apr 2017 16:56:00

Sushil Kumar of Indot Photo Book was hunting for a solution that would help expand his photo album business – and he was encouraged when he saw the Fujifilm Acuity Advance Select.

Indot is headquartered in Chalakudy in Kerala. The parent company, Indot Color World is a five centre operation for photo albums with centres in Chennai and Pune, as well as multiple collection centres across Kerala. Ever since the firm invested in two Fujifilm Acuity Advance Select machines, there is bullishness in the air. This flatbed UV inkjet can print on any substrate – plastics, wood, acrylic, glass, board, metal, ceramics, textiles, carpeting, and more.

Operations at Indot on the Acuity Select are an eye opener. Commercial printers print on paper. Packaging converters extend it a bit more. But Indot raises the bar with an array of finished products.

Today, Indot is a leader in photo album production and photobooks. The company reigns supreme. Sushil Kumar, managing partner of Indot says, “Leading photographers seek customised and unique products, based on their themes for the wedding/ event. So they have been approaching us for better finished products.”

Sushil Kumar considered many technologies and machines from a number of manufacturers but settled on the Acuity as it is ‘specifically engineered for flatbed and produces the print jobs beautifully’. “What I really wanted was to find a machine that would allow us to print directly on a rigid substrate, while also producing a similar quality to what we could get from fine art printing processes,” says Sushil Kumar.

One innovative job Indot created had a texture effect, and was printed on 4mm multi wood with the Fujifilm Acuity Advance Select. They first printed with white ink which was unleashed five times followed by one varnish layer. After which the CMYK colours were applied. This makes the print job resemble a realistic painting – a favourite for luxury homes and posh interiors.

Sushil Kumar says, “Apart from the fact that it is high quality, the Acuity is also saving us on labour time and materials involving lamination and sticking prints onto panels.” There is quite a buzz in the market about what the Acuity is capable of producing. INDOT’s customers are not only for photo albums, but also for posters, framed photographs as well as customised bags and album covers.

One of Indot’s album cover has an engraving effect gelled with gold media and a coating varnish for the letters. “Only with this one investment, we have been able to do various things in the photo industry,” adds Sushil Kumar.

The Acuity is ideal for creating an embossed design. Indot has produced a job with eight layers detailed on ink on the micro-text. Sushil Kumar says “Earlier this was not easy to create. Now I can print directly on acrylic.” This is a ‘hot’ design at Indot with a base black colour along with a combination of white ink.

The number of albums and art objects Indot produces is staggering. Sushil Kumar says, “Everyone now realises, we not only produce photo albums, but are also very creative with print. This has been possible only because of the Acuity Advance Select.”

Lessons to learn from the Lords of Finance, hundreds year ago

PrintWeek India — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 11:04:00

There is a charming story about how in 1999, Liaquat Ahamed saw a Time magazine cover photograph of Alan Greenspan (then chairman of the Federal Reserve Board), Robert Rubin (Treasury secretary) and Lawrence Summers (deputy secretary). On cue, Ahamed pondered the article's headline: "The Committee to Save the World." That is when he knew he had found his four super heroes - and a great book.

His four stars were: Sir Montagu Norman, governor of the Bank of England; Benjamin Strong, who headed the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Emile Moreau, governor of the Banque de France and Hjalmar Schacht; who headed the Reichsbank. These men according to Salgaokar schemed to rescue our planet from economic fragility, from the bubbles and busts and the events that led to the Great Depression.

Salgaokar's 22 page study of the first collective of central bankers is insightful. More importantly it is most relevant for India. For one, in the 1920s, the four top central bankers had acquired a mystique and fame; and were described as "the most exclusive club in the world". Lessons which have been forgotten during the sub-prime crisis and the Lehmann Brothers fiasco.

Salgaokar is an economics student and he provides as a peek into the world view of Ahamed who was an insider in the World Bank. The book is as much as the chapter seems to suggest central bankers are a metaphor like the Myth of Sisyphus. This was the man whom the gods condemned to roll a large stone up a steep hill only for it to roll down again when it reached the peak.

As the NY Times said while reviewing The Lords of Finance, "These central bankers were so steeped in dogma that they were incapable of imagining a word lesser mortals are familiar with: failure."

Hundred years have passed by, and the question remains the same. Do we understand the workings of that complicated apparatus any better than our forebears did? Or do we only think we do? John Maynard Keynes said it best in an essay about "The Great Slump of 1930. he said: "We have involved ourselves in a colossal muddle, having blundered in the control of a delicate machine, the working of which we do not understand."

Books

LORDS OF FINANCE
The Bankers Who Broke the World
By Liaquat Ahamed
Illustrated. 564 pp. The Penguin Press. Rs 2,225

PAISA ANI MADHYAMVARGA
By Jayraj Salgaokar
184 pp. Majestic Publishing House. Rs 250