Layflat photobook production success at council

The demand for school year books has expanded so quickly that the printing department of South Lanarkshire Council in Scotland has bought photobook making equipment.

As a result, the council is offering the photobook service directly to schools in the area.

The council has installed a Fastbind Fotomount F46 electrically operated large format lay flat photo book maker and a Casematic hard cover maker from Ashgate Automation.

Angie Moakler, design and production manager at South Lanarkshire Council, said: 'I don't know of another council that has made this type of investment, which we believe makes very good commercial sense as well as helping our education department.

There are 123 schools within South Lanarkshire to whom we can now offer this service, primarily through their Parent Teachers' Associations.

Everybody wins because our rates are very competitive, enabling the PTAs to buy and sell the photobooks cost effectively.

This makes them more affordable for parents to buy while generating income for the schools, which is important in the current financial climate.

Angie Moakler first saw the Fastbind equipment being demonstrated on the Ashgate stand at an Open Day in Old Trafford, Manchester.

She commented: 'We had been planning to introduce a photobook service but at that time we hadn't identified any equipment.

As we were tapping into a new market, we had to look carefully at the capital outlay, which made the cost of the Fotomount and the Casematic appealing.

Quality was equally important.

The Fotomount produces lay-flat pages, allowing images and text to run seamlessly across double page spreads for a very professional finish.

The equipment is easy to set up and efficient to use.

Although it is manually operated, our runs are quite short from less than ten to about a hundred plus.

The Fastbind Fotomount F46e produces lay-flat, edge to edge photobooks.

Photographic or digitally printed sheets are printed as spreads on a Canon 7000vp, creased and then folded ready for the Fotomount.

It builds the page block by inserting a self-adhesive card mounted sheet (200micron or 850micron) between each folded spread.

The Mountinglift device controls the accuracy of the page block while it is being assembled.

Page blocks can be produced up to 8cm thickness and in sizes from CD to 18in x 18in.

The page block is trimmed ready for the hardcase cover, which is produced on the Casematic, to be attached using a self-adhesive end sheet, which is part of the page block.

The hard covers are digitally printed on a wide format Canon printer or on the 7000, depending on their size.

South Larnarkshire Council is also using the Fastbind equipment for a variety of other applications.

Moakler said: 'We produce our own training films in-house, which are available on-line.

However there is also a requirement for a small number of DVD and we now make the DVD cases using the Casematic cover maker.

We also make customised folders and binders.

Finishing a job in a hard cover gives it impact and makes a big difference when handing out photocopied or digitally printed material.

That's why we use it for presentations and civic awards, for example, the applications are numerous and enquiries about the service are coming in all the time.

Back to top