The company has launched the product at Europe’s largest event for the digital wide format printing services industry, Fespa Digital 2012, scheduled on February 21-24, 2012 in Barcelona, Spain.

The company has designed the metalized poster printing paper to help businesses in marketing activities and to make its brands more attractive in the public. The paper, coated on one side, offers a high metallic effect to posters for superior brand image. The material is more suitable for advertising fashion lines, beers, perfumes, watches and high-end cars.

The company integrates two of its core competence areas to develop Ahlstrom Chantaffiche Metalized. One being its experience in blueback poster paper and the second is the proficiency in base paper used for metalization. The metalized custom printing poster paper offers best visual impact, durability and easy posting.

Ahlstrom partners with leading businesses in the metalizing industry to develop products used in a wide range of applications, such as food packaging, label printing, flooring, wallcovers and filters. It produces poster papers for all printing processes and for both indoor and outdoor applications. Jan Witt, Product Manager of Poster paper, stated that the metalized poster paper represents the company’s commitment to continue offering new products to the market.

The Queen’s life has being remembered in a series of postcard printing in an article in the Financial Times.

As the Queen gets ready to celebrate sixty years as the head of state for Great Britain, the nation gets ready to celebrate this fact, and one of the first nods towards the jubilee is a collection of picture postcard printing exhibited by the Financial Times in its magazine, celebrating all aspects of the Queen’s life in pictures. The collection of postcards was begun by Mary Dunkin, avid collector of picture postcards and the wife of David Robson who wrote the accompanying article.

The Queen’s diamond jubilee is due to spark many new souvenirs to mark the occasion, much in the way that Prince William and Kate Middleton’s royal wedding did last year. This may mean that printing companies who design such souvenirs may call upon the demands of local print shops who can offer services such as postcard custom printing.

From Cambridge to Carlisle, printing companies everywhere will be gearing up to produce posters advertising events that are being hosted to celebrate the Queen’s diamond jubilee. As with the royal wedding, it is expected that there will be street parties, fairs and events to celebrate the day and by using local print companies to create promotional material for these events will be the key to their success. As well as commemorative stamps and postcards, many design companies are preparing to produce posters, flyers and other printed materials to mark the occasion.

Use of polythene banner printing to propagate various vaccination drives being carried out by the state health department has landed the authorities in a soup, as, despite having been told by the state pollution control board to desist from the practice, they went ahead and put up lakhs of polythene custom printing banners in the state on Friday morning.

The TOI had recently highlighted the issue, following which the Karnal health department had decided not to put up any polythene banner in future. However, the state health department, without paying any heed to the issue, released lakhs of polythene banners which came up across 20 districts in the state.

When TOI got in touch with health authorities at district and state levels, chief medical officers of Karnal, Panipat and Sonipat maintained that polythene banners had been supplied by the state health department. On the other hand, deputy director, health, Suresh Dalpat, said that they had only provided funds, while the banners were got made by the district authorities printing services. He however could not explain as to how printing of all the banners, which came up across the state, remained the same everywhere.

Chairman, State Pollution Control Board, R R Jowel, said it was a grave issue and the department would take appropriate action against any CMO found guilty of violating the ban on polythene. The department would also find out as to which unit had made these polythene banners and, if need be, it would be sealed for the violation, he said.

Meanwhile, director general, health, Haryana, Dr Narvir Singh, when contacted, feigned ignorance about polythene banners. Admitting that it was a serious issue, the DG said the department could not use polythene banner printing and poster printing. Polythene banners mentioning details about the polio drive, commencing on February 19 and ending on February 21, had come up everywhere in the state.

According to sources within the health department, many officials had opposed the move to get polythene banner printed, but some commission agents managed to prevail upon the higher-ups and got the polythene banners made. It is not understood how senior officials of the department could violate the ban, they said.

The new shaped wine labels service from 4OVER4 is available in Standard Uncoated Label, Standard Semi-Gloss Label and Standard Hi-Gloss Label. Sizes of 3″ Circle, 4″ Circle, 4.5″ Circle, 3″ x 4″ Oval, 4″ x 6″ Oval and Custom Die (Call or Email for quote) are available from 4over4 with quantities of between 25 and 25,000 prints per order.

4OVER4 also optionally provides QR Codes on printed labels to improve the marketability of wines.

“A great wine label is not only attractive to the consumer but tells the story of the wine product. Shaped wine labels from 4OVER4 combine quality label papers with great designs and shapes to create this effect,” says 4OVER4.COM Principal Taso Panagiotopoulos.

For more information about Shaped Wine Labels printing or for any updates or inquiries, please visit 4over4.com/printing/shaped-wine-labels, email support (at) 4over4 (dot) com or call the 4OVER4.COM customer care line on 1-718-932-2700.

Chicago’s city clerk may delay the printing services of more than one million city vehicle stickers, as she investigates whether their design may contain gang symbols.

City Clerk Susana Mendoza’s office made the announcement following posts on two police blogs that point out similarities between the sticker printing design and the symbol for the Maniac Latin Disciples, a street gang on Chicago’s North Side.

The design, which was meant to honor Chicago emergency workers, features a sketch of the city’s skyline tucked into a heart shape, with four hands reaching upward toward a police cap, a firefighter helmet and an EMT symbol. It was drawn by a teenager who attends a special needs school in the city, and it beat out about 300 other entries in a city-wide art contest. The winning design was to appear on about 1.3 million vehicle custom printing stickers, said Kristine Williams, a spokeswoman for the clerk.

But following questions from reporters that were spurred by the two blog posts, the clerk’s office is now consulting outside gang experts and the Chicago Police Department before it goes ahead with the printing next week, Williams said.

“With a city sticker that honors Chicago’s heroes and first responders, obviously [Mendoza is] sensitive to the concerns that people have,” Williams said. “And, again, we just need to gather the facts before we make decisions.”

Adding to the flap over the sticker design are pictures that were posted on the two blogs. The photos, purportedly from the teenaged artist’s Facebook page, show people forming what appear to be gang hand signs.

A spokeswoman for Lawrence Hall Youth Services, a school for at-risk youth where the artist is a freshman, said she’s unaware of whether the boy is in a gang.

“What I do know is that kids all over Chicago and all over the country make stupid choices and put up items on Facebook that may or may not be appropriate,” said spokeswoman Jill Watson.

SATO, a global leader in barcoding, label printing and sticker printing and AIDC products and printing services, is exhibiting at this year’s EuroCIS where it will showcase a wide range of custom printing products developed especially for the retail market. Visitors to Stand G15 can familiarize themselves with SATO’s powerful barcode printers and labeling solutions, which have been developed to help businesses in the retail industry improve service, configure operational procedures more efficiently, optimize inventory management and rise to the challenges of increasing cost pressures.

The labelling demands of businesses in the retail sector are varied, ranging from the need to quickly perform price mark-downs for special offers and promotions, to marking products with a short shelf life and performing shelf price labelling. In all these cases, SATO provides versatile solutions with strong price/performance ratios, which are suitable for businesses of all sizes, from small independent companies to large retail chains.

At the forefront of SATO’s portfolio is the revolutionary TH2 label printer, a mobile, versatile and intelligent label printing solution which is the first to introduce the concept of Application Enabled Printing (AEP). The TH2 clearly demonstrates its strengths in the retail industry, providing flexible, consistent and fast labelling for price mark-downs and promotional campaigns. The TH2 is also ideal for businesses in which food is handled, especially fast-food and quick-serve restaurants. It features an integrated real-time clock, making it easy for users to comply with statutory regulations on the preparation and identification of food. The TH2 is also attractive due to its extremely modest price, with no other product in its class offering such innovative features and advantages.

Customers can now get 4OVER4.COM premium stickers in uncoated label, semi-gloss label, hi-gloss label, white vinyl (permanent), white vinyl (repositionable), clear cling label, white cling label, clear label permanent, clear vinyl repositionable, fluorescent green, fluorescent red and fluorescent pink. In addition to custom “any size” prints, customers can also get standard 3″ x 5″, 3″ x 6″, 4″ x 4″, 4″ x 6″, 5″ x 5″, and 5″ x 7″ prints from 4OVER4.COM. Quantities of between 25 and 25,000 prints can also be ordered per time.

“4OVER4 has expanded its premium stickers printing service to give customers many more quality options for a wider range of great new sticker products,” says 4OVER4.COM Principal Taso Panagiotopoulos.

For more information about premium stickers printing or for any updates or inquiries, please visit 4over4.com/printing/premium-stickers, email support (at) 4over4 (dot) com or call the 4OVER4.COM customer care line on 1-718-932-2700.

The Minnesota Senate Republican campaign committee will pay the state back for the cost of custom printing literature given out at GOP caucuses last week.

Democrats complained the material was clearly partisan should not have been printed at taxpayer expense.

Steve Sviggum, Senate Republican spokesman, said the Senate Republican campaign committee will retroactively pay the cost of the flyer printing. Sviggum said the entire cost was $47.

Democrats said the content of the pieces, which were given to a handful of GOP Senators to give to voters, made them campaign material. The pieces thank people “for joining this Republican precinct caucus,” and says “the Senate Republican majority delivered for Minnesota.”

Sviggum said the language was vetted by the Senate counsel and found to be appropriate. But he said the hand-outs included a web link to the Senate’s campaign website, which includes a form to donate to Republicans, and that was inappropriate.

“I take complete responsibility for a wrong,” said Sviggum, a former speaker of the Minnesota House. He said that the Senate updated the link to a less partisan site Tuesday afternoon.

DFL Party Ken Martin said before Sviggum said the campaign committee will repay the cost that the issue goes beyond the dollars.

“I also think it is important for somebody, some administrative body, to hold these elected officials and this caucus responsible for their actions,” Martin said. The DFL Tuesday filed a complaint over the booklet printing and flyer printing services with the Office of Administrative Hearings.

Hewlett-Packard is planning to expand its managed printing services solutions to partners with new offerings slated for later in 2012.

The vendor has also updated its workstation line with the introduction of the HP Z1 Workstation, an all-in-one model that fits in a 27-inch LCD panel but allows easy replacement and upgrading of the internal components.

The new offerings were presented to partners in back-to-back keynote sessions at the HP Global Partner Conference, currently underway in Las Vegas.

Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president of HP’s Imaging and Printing Group, told partners that the amount of digital data being created, both in corporate offices and in the cloud, is growing very quickly, and that 50% of an average worker’s time is spent on managing data.

About 6% of the average enterprise’s budget is spent on imaging and printing, and of that amount, about 10% goes to hardware and supplies, 15% to services and 75% to solutions, Joshi said.

Consequently, HP is introducing new technology to help push solution providers up the stack of value-added business, he said.

“If you are only in hardware, we want you to move to supplies,” he said. “If you are only in hardware and supplies, we want you to move to services. If you are in hardware, supplies and services, we want you to move to solutions.”

HP already has some managed print solutions that solution providers can use to improve their business, Joshi said. For instance, he cited ePrint, a relatively new mobile print solution from HP that allows anyone with an Internet-enabled device to send print jobs (like tri fold brochures, sticker printing or card printing) from their iOS or Android devices to a cloud-enabled print centre for later pickup or delivery.

The new 4OVER4 window clings printing service features inside-use only window clings (cling on backside), custom sizes, same day turnarounds, gloss finish and more.

4OVER4 now offers window clings printing in white window cling type (opaque static cling with gloss finish) and sizes of 16″ x 20″, 18″ x 24″, 20″ x 24″, 20″ x 30″, 24″ x 36″, 24″ x 48″, 24″ x 60″, 28″ x 40″, 30″ x 40″, 36″ x 48″ and 40″ x 60″. Custom size prints are also now available from 4OVER4. Customers can order between 1 and 100 prints at a time.

“4OVER4 is a dynamic online printing company that continues to add value for customers by increasing the printing options available to them. By adding new quality options to our window clings printing service, we’re doing just that,” says 4OVER4.COM Principal Taso Panagiotopoulos.

For more information about window clings printing or for any updates or inquiries, please visit 4over4.com/printing/window-clings, email support (at) 4over4 (dot) com or call the 4OVER4.COM customer care line on 1-718-932-2700.