Pushing the boundaries in sports and print: Sappi’s Algro Design® Card forms basis for new 2018 photo calendar
“Move X-treme. Discover your possibilities” – This is the umbrella theme under which ACTEGA Terra, Koenig & Bauer and Sappi have continued their successful joint calendar project over the last few years. The new 2018 calendar, hot off the press, depicts athletes who push themselves to their limits, whether in speed skating, white water kayaking or motocross. Steely resolve and perfect preparation can lead to outstanding sporting success. The rewards: strong emotions, a great deal of public interest and the satisfaction of having accomplished something extraordinary. These are reactions similar to those experienced by three companies from the worlds of speciality papers, quality printing and overprint varnishes for high-quality finishing as they produce their annual calendar.
Implementation
Choosing a theme is usually the first step when planning a calendar. Previous themes have included exotic landscapes, distant cities, underwater worlds, animals and textures. For the 2018 edition, the team was once again on the lookout for images that express activity and inspire emotion. The images also needed to be suitable for high-quality finishes using varnish. As in previous years, the brilliant white cellulose carton Algro Design from Sappi was chosen as the substrate. This choice sets the calendar apart from the commodity printing paper typically used for calendar production.
“Across all 12 months, ‘Move X-treme’ takes the viewer into the world of performance athletes and extreme sports. We have once again purposely kept the calendar section quite small since the focus of the product is not its function as a calendar, but rather, its role as high-quality wall decoration and a presentation medium,” explains Timo Kondziela, Marketing Director at ACTEGA Terra GmbH. The calendar is a look book for high quality print, combining varied varnish effects and technologies designed to inspire companies to apply the those same inline finishing processes to their own projects.
ACTEGA Terra who want to give its premium calendar a look that would truly set it apart; for that reason, Sappi Algro Design Card cellulose carton, made from fresh fibres, was chosen as an ideal substrate for high-end applications, guaranteeing maximum precision and consistent high quality. Its bright white finish and consistent surface enable clearer, livelier printed images, ensuring increased contrast while giving an impression of greater space.
Production
Sven Kretzschmar, Process Engineer and Finishing Expert at KBA-Sheetfed, says, “Producing the ACTEGA calendar presents a great opportunity for all parties to jointly develop, test and implement innovative inline finishing processes. Algro Design is a high-quality material that shows finishing effects off to their best advantage. The better the coating of the carton board, the more impressive the effect. And Algro Design ticks all those boxes.”
The 82 x 58.5 cm calendar was produced at Koenig & Bauer in Radebeul, using a six-colour Rapida 105 PRO sheetfed offset press with twin coaters. This modern medium format printer is able to execute nearly all finishing processes except screen printing, which was added offline. For the calendar, many sheets required multiple processes in order to realise the desired varnish effects.
- For the month of June, two drip-off effects were implemented on the same image. By combining a UV-based coating with a conventional primer, matt/gloss contrasts as well as textured effects were created.
- A screen print varnish with sand effect, used in sheetfed offset printing, created tangible structures reminiscent of a road surface. Visible and invisible relief effects were created with two screen print applications.
- Combining a matt MotionCoat primer and MotionCoat overprint varnish with vector-based graphics creates the impression of movement when viewed from different angles. The MotionCoat system was applied on two sheets of the calendar: the front page, showing a diamond pattern, and a beam effect for the month of November.
- Other effects used in the calendar include UV matt, LED-UV gloss, pearlescent gold, Mirafoil UV silver before and after image printing, inline embossing and a new friction varnish, which creates a foam-like feel.
- ‘Move X-treme’ is a limited edition calendar and is not for sale. More than 5,000 copies have been produced and distributed to customers and business partners as a high-quality gift and coveted collector’s item.
As in previous years, additional inspirational information on the inks used, the production and finishing details as well as the history behind the images is available on the microsite "www.calendar-insights.de".
About ACTEGA Terra
ACTEGA Terra GmbH, headquartered in Lehrte, Germany (near Hanover), is Europe's market leader in
overprint varnishes. Specialising in water-based coatings, UV coatings, special effect coatings and coatings based
on sustainable raw materials, ACTEGA Terra develops and produces a wide product range
for packaging, labels and commercial printers. The company offers coatings for carton, paper, films and more, which can be used in offset, screen and flexo printing. www.actega.com/terra
About KBA-Sheetfed
KBA-Sheetfed Solutions AG & Co. KG headquartered in Radebeul near Dresden is the business unit at Koenig & Bauer Group responsible for the sheet-fed offset press market segment. As a subsidiary of Koenig & Bauer AG, KBA-Sheetfed Solutions undertakes the development, sales, design and after-sales service for Rapida systems, from half to super-sized formats, including consulting and training. The company is a recognised market and technology leader in large format and packaging printing. In medium format, too, the world's second-largest sheetfed press manufacturer is setting the standards for make-ready times, printing performance, new processes and user-oriented machine configurations. www.koenig-bauer.com
