Birmingham’s efforts for City of Culture praised

Minister of Culture, Ed Vaizey, has backed Birmingham’s efforts behind the city’s ‘City of Culture’ bid by calling the recent London Underground poster campaign “entrepreneurial”.

The city of Birmingham is making a bid for the 2013 City of Culture title which it is hoped will be successful and bring a boost to the local economy of £800m to the West Midlands area, along with 4 million more visitors to the city for the 12 months cultural events programme. The bid plans include ideas such as no longer running the city’s current Arts Festival but replacing this instead with an autumn festival that it is hoped would rival the famous Edinburgh Fringe. The city plans also to host [Read more]

Brand identity unveiled for Birmingham Library

Stationery printers in South Birmingham could be gearing up for a busy time after the new multi-million pound Birmingham Library unveiled the next element of their branding. KLM, the Birmingham based creative marketing agency appointed by the library, unveiled the new brand identify for Birmingham Library and this will be debuted across the city on the hoardings around the building development that is taking place in Centenary Square, in Birmingham city centre. The hoardings will be there until the opening of the new library in 2013, displaying the new brand identity and creating a strong visual impression of the venue before it even opens in three years time.

In addition to the building hoardings, the creative team at KLM will be working on an entire set of [Read more]

Rankin signed up for Birmingham binge drinking campaign

Famous photographer Rankin has been signed up by an NHS trust in Birmingham to give them a hand with their latest anti-binge drinking campaign. The hard hitting campaign is designed to focus on the consequences of binge drinking and the loss of control that follows. Research has shown that whilst most people claim they understand the dangers that can surround binge drinking, they object to being fed a message that this is not socially acceptable behaviour. The NHS Birmingham East and North trust has put together a campaign that is not forcing a ‘drink less’ message but instead, focusing on what can happen as a result.

Rankin was involved in co-directing the viral ad which features a young person drinking heavily and out of control, falling [Read more]

New printing company in Birmingham

There is a good concentration of printing companies around South Birmingham, for example, brochure printers, poster printers and flyer printers, as well as litho printers and wide format printers. All kinds of printing companies in South Birmingham will be interested in news of new competition.

There was a new Birmingham print company start-up in April last year.

The new company, Lucid, was founded by Mr. Jason Langford-Brown who was previously a director at Inkfish and Stralfords. Mr. Langford-brown has several years’ experience in commercial and leadership roles across a range of print, packaging, and customer communication businesses. He has been described as passionate about customer service and the development of his people.

Lucid employs 12 staff and they have invested in a Xeikon 5000plus digital colour press in a [Read more]

Print automation features at IPEX 2010

If you are a brochure printing company, or even a large volume print firm, around South Birmingham you will be well placed to attend this year’s IPEX Exhibition at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre. Organisers IIR Exhibitions Ltd, along with CIP4 Corporation, are providing a special pavilion for exhibitors to demonstrate top-of-the-line print automation technology. The exhibition will take place at the NEC on 18th-25th May 2010.

There will also be a new show feature this year called Print Automation Live and visitors will receive a Print Automation Roadmap. Mr. James Harvey, executive director at CIP4, said:

“Cost savings and increased productivity are still on the top of the priority list, and many printers I’ve spoken with have said that [Read more]

South Birmingham Kalamazoo moves to Redditch

There are many different kinds of printing companies offering business card and stationery printing in South Birmingham, as well as firms offering full print management solutions and specialist security printers, such as Kalamazoo Secure Solutions.

Kalamazoo was located in Northfield, South Birmingham but they needed larger premises. Around the middle of 2009 the company moved to larger premises in Redditch, about 20 miles further south. They now operate out of a 5,760sqm site after investing £2.5 million.

According to the chief executive of Kalamazoo’s parent company, Adare, the company needed larger premises because the company had outgrown its current site.

Mr. Robert Whiteside said:

“The new site gives the company greater security internally and externally, as well as improving efficiency.”

As part of the investment, the company bought a Miyakoshi eight-colour Techno-E press to service growing [Read more]

South Birmingham firm secures Rail Timetable contract

A South Birmingham print management company, Etrinsic, has secured a contract to print and distribute rail timetables. The company, which is based in Solihull, is producing the timetables for the Go-Ahead Group’s rail operation, Govia, who are a transport company.

Govia own the Southern, South Eastern and London Midland rail franchises. Between them the franchises handle almost 30% of UK passenger rail traffic.

The Birmingham print company will print and distribute, twice yearly, over 3.5 million timetables, delivering to 200 stations and other related outlets.

Etrinsic’s account director Paul Howie said:

“We have been working in the rail sector for more than 15 years and have proved we can deliver outstanding service in what is an extremely pressurised, deadline-driven and logistically complex [Read more]

EBB moves to new premises in Birmingham

The UK’s largest family-owned independent paper and board supplier, Elliott Baxter & Co Ltd, formerly located in Sutton Coldfield, has moved to new premises. The company’s new branch in Birmingham, which opened in March 2009, is now located at Gravelly Industrial Park.

The new site, 1,858sqm in size, is considerably larger than the Sutton Coldfield premises at 1,114sqm. It has enabled the company to increase it’s stockholding from 800 tonnes to in excess of 2,000 tonnes. Managing Director Tim Elliot said:

Despite tough trading conditions, EBB is confident of growing its business and the time is right to expand our area into the East Midlands

EBB is also planning to create a large distribution centre at Farnborough by merging its Farnborough and Southampton [Read more]

South Birmingham advertising company charms a Cobra

Cobra’s National Curry Week is all about reinforcing the connection between curry, and Indian beer Cobra. The task of designing the artwork and advertising campaign to re-associate Cobra beer with curry was given to the South Birmingham based advertising company, Life. Life worked on POS printing in South Birmingham to design a series of adverts to promote Cobra’s National Curry Week.

The POS created by Life will be used throughout Curry Week, which takes place next week, in shops throughout the UK, including Indian restaurants. Life has created poster printing in South Birmingham to depict classic Indian images, such as henna hand decorations, in an attempt to create a contemporary image for [Read more]