Pureprint makes London Book Fair debut

Uckfield-based digital and litho printer Pureprint is exhibiting at the London Book Fair for the first time this week.

The book publishing trade fair is taking place from today (Tuesday 14 April) until Thursday (16 April) at London’s Olympia.

Pureprint is exhibiting on stand 7J34 in the Publishing Solutions area while other UK printers exhibiting at the show include Printondemand-worldwide and Gomer Press.

Pureprint, which has won Book Printer of the Year at the PrintWeek Awards for the past three years, has produced a publication to display at the show called Pureprint Works for Publishers.

Available on the firm’s stand for the duration of the event, the publication features information about 12 of the books and projects that the company has recently worked on, including successful variable data publishing children’s title Lost My Name.

Pureprint director Richard Owers said: “Three of us went to the Frankfurt Book Fair about 18 months ago and we were inspired by the breadth and range that takes place in the publishing sector.

“We’ve increasingly been doing a lot of publishing work and we thought we’d come along and raise awareness as to why publishers are choosing a UK printer for some of the many and varied projects mentioned in Pureprint Works for Publishers.

“Virtually all of the projects that we’ve featured are those where one of the requirements was that the publisher wanted to work with a UK-based printer because they can work much more closely with the printer on colour critical reproduction or if they want a very short lead time to handle fast reprints.

“For example, the publisher of Loom Magic!, a book about the loom bands craze, wasn’t sure how the demand was going to go and wanted to make sure they could meet changing demand.

“We were able to do a big reprint in a week and in the end they produced over half a million copies of the publication. They wouldn’t have been able to be as responsive as that if it was printed overseas."

Pureprint, which has a turnover of more than £58m and employs 375 staff, serves clients in the corporate, retail, creative and fine art sectors. Earlier this year it acquired a majority shareholding in Newcastle upon Tyne-based Imprint Group.

The deal was financed with part of Pureprint's recently announced £5.3m investment from Business Growth Fund.