Offset Printing
Printmaster GTO 52 – User Report: iDruck
Wednesday 30. July 2008 - "Here in my company, I am the Joker", says Kurt Messer, owner of the printshop iDruck in Itingen (near Basle) in Switzerland. Messer, who is also a qualified printer, sometimes operates the press himself, "if need be". Although the company has only four employees - or perhaps, thanks to the flexibility of such a rather small team - , it has been able to increase its turnover by twenty percent within five years.
The two-color Printmaster GTO 52 that has been used for production every day at iDruck for almost exactly four years – the press was delivered on July 31, 2004 – has greatly contributed to this success. With an average print volume of 4,500 sheets and approximately 1,000 jobs per year, the Printmaster GTO 52 has now produced more than ten million prints. “The Printmaster GTO 52 is the perfect press for our requirements and job structure”, enthuses Messer. He particularly appreciates the reliability and versatility of the press, as such qualities are of great importance for relatively small printshops.
The reasons why Messer opted for Heidelberg – and against a Ryobi press – include the renowned print quality and flexibility of the Printmaster GTO 52, but also its single-sheet feeder which is very useful for printing envelopes of all kinds. Last, but not least, Heidelberg as a company “is the epitome of a printing press and stands for quality”, says Messer.
The Printmaster GTO 52 processes the most diverse substrates, ranging from 50 to 400 gsm. In addition to design, production, and – to a certain extent – postpress (e.g. folding, creasing, and grooving), iDruck specializes on additional surface finishing techniques such as hot foil, blind, high-relief, and deep embossing. “Surface-finishes with six or seven colors on structured paper are a special challenge”, says Messer.
The machinery in the press area includes not only the Printmaster GTO 52-2, but also a Practica 01, a platen with an embossing station, and a letterpress cylinder. The regular iDruck customers are small to medium-sized companies, private persons, as well as superior national hotels.
The name of the printshop was coined by Kurt Messer’s team; it is a fusion of the German words Idee [idea] and Eindruck [impression]. Thus, the “Müller Druck & Satz” company became “iDruck – von der Idee bis zum Druck” (iDruck – from idea to impression) at the beginning of 2007. Kurt Messer, who has been managing the printshop for five years, has plans for the future, including an expansion of foil embossing beyond the current A4 format, and perhaps an increase in the number of A3 and A2 format jobs.