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The Raft Race - Sunday 4th October 2015.  On the River Dart, from Buckfastleigh to Totnes Picture the scene, 7:30 in the morning next to the River Dart, mist in the valley and the water gently passing by… The field littered with rafts of all shapes and sizes, much like the people in their wet suits.Sausages and bacon on the grill with tea and coffee to follow, must be time for the River Dart Struggle. Our raft builder was looking slightly nervous as we hadn't even tested the raft. He should think himself lucky as he wasn't the one going to be sat on it. Into the water we ...

Meet our employee of the month - Chris Mellors, our new print estimator. He has joined the team with masses of print experience and has fitted in really well with the team. His work ethic and effort has been amazing so far and he is certainly making a brilliant impact on the team. Well done Chris you are already proving to be a valuable member of team Kingfisher! Thank you! Ross ...

Proud as punch. We are very proud to share the news that we are giving our support to TEDx Totnes. We are very much aware that our business is as much about the people we work with and the community we live in as it is the paper we print on. Totnes is a community formed by a desire to make fundamental changes in the way we all live our lives, and the impact we have on people and the world around us. We are very happy to be able to support the very first TEDx Totnes, and with tickets for the much coveted event selling out in a few hours, we know this will be the first of many! TED t ...

Meet our employee of the month - Suzie Penney, Customer Service Manager There was absolutely no contest this month. As ever, I have had a lots of names put forward from the team for some great performances in all departments. However if it wasn't for our Customer Service Manager Suzie I really don't know where I would be right now, her effort and commitment to me and to Kingfisher Print & Design is nothing short of amazing, and something I will never forget. Although I have heard that for the past few weeks she has had a little bit of help from her glamourous male assistant! Th ...

Studio designer Kim is our employee of the month. Nearly everyone in the business nominated her; even people who don't normally nominate sent messages about her. Kim has worked for Kingfisher Print & Design for nearly twenty five years – that is dedication! It's always great to reflect, and appreciate our high levels of staff retention; the team here are what makes our business great. Choosing an employee of the month can be difficult at times. There lots of people who constantly perform at a very high level and get nominated regularly. There was a person who was nominated by seve ...

We couldn't be prouder of our Jon Carkett as he recovers from completing his first (and possibly not last) Iron Man UK Triathlon, which took place in Bolton on Sunday 19th July 2015. The course featured breathtaking views and a spectator-friendly course, where his wife Jo and two children Abi & Amy were waiting to cheer him across the finish line after this gruelling race. An Ironman UK Triathlon is one of a series of long-distance triathlon races consisting of a 2.4-mile (3.86 km) swim, a 112-mile (180.25 km) bicycle ride and a full 26.2-mile ...

We are very proud to announce the strategic appointment of Dave Stones as our Commercial Director. As specialists in commercial litho and digital print, we have announced the appointment of Dave Stones as Commercial Director in this newly created role. We have been continully growing and adapting our business for over 30 years, and as firm which employs over 30 staff we have made the strategic move in line with our ambitious growth plans. Dave will be responsible for contributing to Kingfisher Print & Design's overall strategy and increasing offerings to both existing and new clients ...

This month's employee of the month is our Estate Agent Studio Designer Dave Wong. Dave has carried the team since the beginning of the year, looking after other team members workload in their abscence and supporting our newest designers Jodie and Charley when they started. Since the General Election in May, the work load has just gone mad in the Estate Agent Studio and Dave had has the task of trying to keep all our clients happy. Although there has been lots of long hours and some hairy moments, everyone in the Estate Agent team have done an amazing job to juggle everything and get th ...

We are very excited to share the news that we have been announced as nominated finalists in three categories at the Print, Design & Marketing Awards 2015. Best Printed Marketing Campaign - Little Golden Egg Hunt Best Social Media Campaign - Hangover Kits Best Cross Media Campaign - Little Golden Egg Hunt You can read more about our award nominations in the Western Morning News. Our Marketing Manager, Jodie Fulton and Project Designer, Andy Gooding will be heading to London on 11th June for the award ceremony on aboard the Silver Sturgeon.   We are up against some large ...

We are hiring! We are on the lookout for an experienced Estimator to join our growing team at Kingfisher Print & Design immediately to support our Account Managers with quotes, estimates and brilliant customer service! Our ideal candidate will currently be in a similar role, and have an excellent understanding of complex and fast-turnaround litho and digital print as well as previous experience of using an estimating system like Shuttleworth. Most importantly we are looking to appoint someone who can offer outstanding customer service and demonstrable experience of working in a deman ...

We had great fun in the lead up to Easter with our little golden egg hunt. It seems all of our customers enjoyed receiving their egg hunt packs with their print orders. Four lucky customers found a golden egg and were winners of a £50 high street voucher. Each of the egg hunt packs contained a uniquely numbered golden ticket. We pulled a golden ticket from the hat on Thursday 2nd April and the lucky (or unlucky in this case?!) ticket holder has failed to come forward to claim their prize - £500 of print for their company – despite sharing the ticket number across all of ou ...

One of my challenges as the business grows is always to find the right new people to fit into the Kingfisher team. We have had some good success over the years, particularly with a couple of our apprentices; Sam who works in the press room and Jenny in the design studio have both worked out really well for us. You can read more about Jenny's journey in her recent blog. As these apprenticeships were so successful we are now looking to employ a few more young apprentices in business. I feel there is a real lack of young people coming into the print industry so I am really keen to my bit a ...

It was an exciting start to 2015 for us with the installation of our new Heidelberg Press. We made the £1m investment to replace our old press, which racked up some 150 million impressions in the 3 years we had it. You can read more about it in Print Week and the Herald Express. The new press is very similar to the old one, although the new version has an autoplate system that will improve our make readies by 2-3 minutes. Although this may not seem like a big time saving we are now averaging over 50 make readies per 12 hour shift, and running 6 days a week. So you can see when ...

It's exciting to see an increase in the number of our customers who are now using our web2print solution, and finding it helpful not only in the management of ordering marketing collateral but using it to support their organisations marketing efforts by utilising the Right Market data, which is available within the software – and most importantly, seeing some great results. We understand that the methods of managing marketing communications especially in large or multi-site organisations, can be labour intensive and costly and we are often told by customers that it can be a strug ...

We're getting behind the Bobby Moore Fund Donning our team colours for Football Shirt Friday As you all know our Managing Director Ross Bellotti has been busy training for the London Marathon later this month to raise funds & awareness of the Bobby Moore Fund which aims to tackle bowel cancer.  In 2014 we all got on board with their campaign called Football Shirt Friday and we are all dusting off your shirts again this Friday 17th April to give Ross's fundraising efforts a boost and help the Bobby Moore Fund raise awareness and money. Let's help Ross get to his ...

Check your pockets! Darn you may even want to check the recycling bin! The lucky winner of the golden ticket hasn't yet come forward to claim their prize of £500 of print for their company or business.  The winning golden ticket is number 0187.  As of yet the winner has not come foward. We are on the hunt to track down the winning golden ticket. We hope you all kept your golden ticket safe? Please share the winning number with any colleagues, friends or family.  We will keep the prize open until after the May bank holiday (Tuesday 6th May 201 ...

Who found the golden eggs? The little golden egg hunt is now complete. We have delivered almost 600 egg hunt packs to our lovely customers over the past few weeks - we hope all of our customers enjoyed receiving their Easter treats. There were 4 little golden eggs hidden amongst all those egg hunt packs and these were found by: Laura, Essential Print Donna Smith, Knight Frank  Charlotte Iles, Exeter College Marketing Steve, 1 Vision Enjoy your £50 high street vouchers! How many eggs were in the basket? Thank you to everyone who entered our 'eggciting&# ...

Employee of the month - March 2015 This month it goes to Garry. He has really put the effort, and the hours in since we have been a man down! He has received some amazing feedback from some customers as well. Well done Garry, well deserved.   ...

Just a little bit of fun in the run up to the Easter break... The Easter bunny has delivered our eggs early – can you guess how many are in the basket? Hop-a-long and tweet us your best guess using #eggsactly – the closest answer will win a BIG bottle of bubbly to help your bank holiday go off with a bang!  Sign up to Twitter and follow us @KingfisherPD Good luck - we hope you win. ...

Don't worry if you didn't hunt a little golden egg with your print order – you will be automatically added to our great BIG golden egg prize draw for your chance to win £500 of print for your company! Every order delivered between Monday 16th March and Wednesday 1st April will be entered into the prize draw – winner chosen on Thursday 2nd April and announced on our website and on Twitter and Facebook. ...

a little gift from us! look out for your egg hunt pack delivered with every print order. find a golden egg and win a £50 high street voucher! Our very own Easter Bunny has arrived and every order delivered between Monday 16th March and Wednesday 1st April will receive a little golden egg hunt pack. Lots of golden eggs to be found up until Easter – keep ordering for your chance to win a £50 high street voucher! ...

Competition Terms and Conditions - The little golden egg hunt Place an order from Kingfisher Print & Design! Any order delivered or collected between Monday 16th March and Wednesday 1st April will be sent a golden egg hunt pack.   There will be three ways to win: Finding a little golden egg in the golden egg hunt pack Entering the great BIG golden egg prize draw Tweeting us your best guess at how many eggs are in the basket   Eligibility The competition is open to residents of the UK aged 16 and over. Proof of identity and age may be req ...

We are on the lookout for a brilliant bright spark to join us. Learn on the job by undertaking an Pre-Press Apprenticeship delivered by the British Printing Industries Federation (BPIF). Maybe you're at School, Art College or Further Education College and thinking about the next steps in your learning. If you're interested in print this apprenticeship maybe just right for you - degree courses are often seen as a high acheivement but what many don't appreciate is that the hands-on experience is invaluable! You can find out more about becoming an apprentice by signing up to the ...

Here's my story... As some of you are probably aware I started at Kingfisher Print & Design about three and a half years ago. I finished my A-levels at a local college and I was undecided about university. I was almost certain I wanted to pursue a career in graphic design but I wanted to be 100% sure. I approached several companies asking if I could intern for a year. Kingfisher Print & Design agreed to take me on as an intern and three months in they arranged an apprenticeship for me - I have never looked back! My apprenticeship was in desktop publishing and pre-press and wa ...

Employee of the month – February 2015... To be honest there can only be one person this month – Andy Gooding. I was invited to present our web2print communication toolkit at a big clients annual national conference. What Andy created for my presentation was amazing. He put in ridiculous hours at stupid times of the day, and night, to get it done. Not only that getting some of the web2print sites live has been almost impossible at times. He really has done a brilliant job in some very challenging circumstances.  ...

We are on the lookout for a talented Account Manager to join our growing team at Kingfisher Print & Design. This vacancy is now filled! Thanks for looking. Please check back for more openings soon.   Our ideal candidate will be currently in a similar role, and have an excellent understanding of complex and fast-turnaround litho and digital print. Most importantly we are looking to appoint someone who can offer outstanding customer service and demonstrable experience of working in a demanding client facing environment. Does that sound like you? Based in Totnes, Devon you ...

We love print. On valentines day and always. ...

Marathon training at Kingfisher Print. You may have read about my marathon quest in our personal goals blog posted at the beginning of 2015. If not, i'll quickly fill you in - I am currently in training for the 2015 London Marathon and hoping to raise lots of money for the Bobby Moore Fund  One month into marathon training. What have I learnt? Its very cold and dark at 5am!! I used to like getting up early to go to the gym or train. For some reason I have found this a real struggle with my marathon training – most of my runs have been after work and it ...

Employee of the month - January 2015 This month it goes to Mark Ellis. One of our team members had a really bad turn in the studio recently. Mark really took control of the situation and did everything he could to make them as safe and comfortable as possible, the way he went about what he did was amazing and he appeared so calm. Well done Mark you should be really proud of the way you reacted. ...

We hope you think of us as a trusted print company but today we also hope that we can bring some sunshine and happiness on what is reported to be the most depressing day of the year. So here are our top 5 tips to avoid it…. 1. It's a beautiful sunny day. Get outside at lunch time, take a walk and breathe in that fresh, wintry air. How lucky we are to live in the West Country! Fun and free, walking only requires motivation and good ole' comfortable shoes and they say that taking just 30 minutes of low impact exercise just five times a week can provide positive benefits and help to: ...

Christmas opening hours Our last working day is Wednesday 24th December and we are back in on Friday 2nd January. We wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year. ...

Each week we will be giving away 2 tickets to watch the mighty Exeter Chiefs at Sandy Park Full Terms & Conditions 2 tickets to watch Exeter Chiefs play at Sandy Park at the following home games of the 2014/15 season. Kick off times vary dependingon match day. As of Friday 26th September the competition will run on the following home matches: ·        Sunday 28th September Exeter Chiefs v's Harlequins KO 2pm ·        Sunday 11th October Exeter Chiefs v's London Irish ...

We are proud to be supporting #FSCFriday today. FSC Friday has become an annual celebration of responsible forestry - it is celebrated across the world, and anyone can get involved. You can find out more about FSC Friday here  The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC®) is an international, non-governmental organisation who are dedicated to promoting the responsible management of all the world's forests.  Our efforst have been recognised by the FSC® who have awarded us FSC® status for sourcing and encouraging the use of ancient forest friendly papers. Y ...

We love clever marketing. This certainly made us chuckle in the Kingfisher Print & Design office today... We wonder if the big boy will a. notice, b. react and c. find it as funny as we did! After all they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery! ...

In the digital world its easy for us printers to run a bit scared. With big brands choosing digital marketing first over any other form of marketing where does print fit into their neatly packaged marketing strategy? This brilliant lunchtime read from PrintWeek must certainly have put a smile on the face of most printers up and down the country - large and small! You can read the report in full here . Choosing digital first doesn't mean the end of print. In fact print will once again become a massive part of the marketing mix. When digital advertising and marketing re ...

Where do we start with paper for print? If you want a simple answer… Well first chop down some trees, (sustainable of course), split them and chop them into tiny fibres, throw in some water and stir it all around. Next throw in some extra chemicals, optical brighteners, squeeze through a mangle whilst applying a coating and voila - a quality sheet of paper. But that's way too big for my Heidelberg press. So that large roll of paper that the mill produced is now cut down into sheets. The sizes for my press are SRA2, which is 640mm x 450mm and B2, which is 720mmx520mm. There ...

We are Kingfisher Print & Design. We are a print company passionate about producing the highest quality litho and digital print, delivered with refreshing enthusiasm and efficient service. You can find out more about us in this little video ...

The dark art of folding has moved on now to an almost fully automated lock and load precision with the Heidelberg KH82 high speed folder. My team of highly skilled operators have had this kit now for nearly 18 months and here is what they have to say about it: 'Not only does it maximise production, but the precision of the fold goes hand in hand. Think of it like origami on red bull!' This machine gives us results which were simply unobtainable 2 years ago. With a process that involved cut/crease/fold, we now hold an 8pp A4 landscape sheet up to 250GSM perfectly. And with ...

Print Week features our newest addition As we prepare to welcome our newest addition to Kingfisher Print & Design Print Week have written a feature about its imminent arrival. You can read more in the March issue. The Kodak NexPress will increase our digital capability when it arrives later this month. If you'd like to know more or have an upcoming project which can be supported by our new digital press email us or call us 01803 867087. Jodie Fulton ...

Ironically in finishing, preparation is key. My alarm goes off at 4:15am (iPhone classic in case you are wondering). It sounds like the evacuation alarm from some space ship being attacked by aliens! It does the trick though and I'm soon up and ready, heading from Plymouth to Totnes for another day in the finishing department at Kingfisher Print & Design. Ironically in finishing, preparation is key. And speaking from a triathlete's point of view, the transition can make or break the race. I tend to arrive before the rest of the team and prep the workload for t ...

Happy print customers It's always nice to hear customers are happy with a job we have printed for them. We've just had some lovely feedback from Applied Automation who provide innovative automation:solutions, systems and products for manufacturing, marine, homes and commercial properties. We were asked to print a series of invitations for a number of business launches. You can read the feedback and see the bespoke invitations on twitter.       ...

Getting inked? Ink, or as some newbie's to the print game call it - paint! Ink has changed massively over the years, this product was originally made using loads of unsustainable products, crude oil being one. We now have a product which is made of vegetable minerals and sustainable products. The down side to this is that the quality of the ink has not evolved as fast as the press technology and this causes problems as the presses now run superfast and the ink cannot always keep up! This makes the viscosity of the ink poor which in turn causes ink fly. There will be more on this la ...

Does this ever happen to you? Now we do love to capture data here Kingfisher Print & Design. I'd almost say it's a skill we've mastered. But we all know if we don't use it wisely it's just a bunch of numbers. We always try to remind ourselves to see through them to find the trends, the kinks in our armour, and our strengths. Where you can pin point that investment and be confident that you'll get the return, remember that there's ALWAYS room for improvement. You don't need to reinvent print to be successful at it, there are enough models that already wo ...

Lean manufacturing and Kingfisher Print & Design go hand in hand. All we seem to hear these days is LEAN! Now what does this actually mean to us? Well in essence, it is shedding the fat. Getting rid of the saturates that clog the arteries, cleansing ourselves of old bad habits, and embracing new technology and systems that move us forward as a company whilst still retaining the ability to give that personal touch. Because we don't live in a perfect world. When things go wrong, we cut straight through the bull excuses and make the call to say whatever it takes we'll get ...

Digital print closes the gap with litho quality We have just replaced our four-year-old Konica Minolta 6501 with a new digital machine - the Kodak NexPressBLM7774F. We dipped our toes in the digital waters with the Konica Minolta but now want to push our digital service to the next level by closing the quality gap with litho. The S300 Digital Colour Press offers unparalleled quality digital print.Our NexPress has been upgraded with the latest components used in the SX model and is designed to print on the widest range of substrates – over 500 are supported. ...

At Kingfisher Print & Design we are keen and avid collectors of data! We record lots of it - this helps us measure how well things are going; from how much paper we use, how long jobs take to print and also to recognize if a member of staff has put in that extra effort worth rewarding. All of our monthly recorded figures are written onto the press target board, where we can build up a picture of the year's good and bad months. We record things such as how many sheets we print in a month, how many sheets we use on average for make ready and our average monthly running speed. We also h ...

Kodak NexPress training week Germany was a revelation. Far from the grim, grey, rain washed northern industrial town we expecting, Kiel was for the most part a lovely city in which to spend a week under the wing of Kodak. The lovely Sarita at Kingfisher Print & Design had created a perfect itinerary for Simon and myself, and the plan ran like clockwork. The week's training was not at all what we expected. We both thought there may be a degree of maintenance and theory but after four days of not even running a job we were getting a bit concerned. Me and mechanics are like chalk and ...

A little 'home-made' but we wanted to capture our first live print job coming through our new digital Kodak NexPress. We are pleased with the end result and our customers were happy too. Everyone is looking forward to putting more work through this press over the coming weeks and months.   ...

So it's a pretty standard conversation. You are introduced to someone new, and you getting chatting. The question comes up - where do you work? Kingfisher Print & Design I tell them. The conversation continues like this: "ahh, so your a printer?"  And I say.. "no I'm a finisher" Oh they say.... "what's the difference then?" I try and put it simply... "An ego!" Believe me or not, us finishers are a breed of our own - we are the ones who bring the print project together, ensuring jobs get completed on ...

Our format favourite of the day. Unusually for us finishers at Kingfisher Print & Design it's 210 x 210! A Double Gloss laminate cover with spot UV finish and flood UV throughout. All 24 pages... It looks amazing as an upmarket property brochure on 250gsm silk. Now that's what we call style! Printed and finished by the today's operators - Woody and Bettles in finishing and print by our Deano. 'Let's create amazing'. ...

With Christmas now a distant memory and the January blues kicking in, we have the perfect antidote. Finally we can see some digital print that is not only cost effective but that blows you away. A combination of... And wait for it because I'm a cycling fanatic… The efficiency of Chris Froome combined with the speed of Mark Cavendish and the looks and beauty of what else but the Kodak NexPress. We are all gearing up to welcome its arrival to our factory in Totnes, Devon in the spring.  ...

Another day another dollar, is that not how the saying goes? Not every day is a great day in the world of print. With a sickness bug causing chaos in our team, we dig deep in the finishing department at Kingfisher Print & Design to meet the customer requirements - efficient and effective team work ensures we can get the job done. The finishing team have grafted to get everyone's work out on time and as team leader I am certainly grateful to them all. For every print finishing job you need - Paul, Jon, Steve, Richard, Karen, Paul and Karl. And for everything else there's Mas ...

With finishing, servicing and all the routine maintenance almost complete as we gear up for 2014 and what could be THE year for Kingfisher Print & Design. Confidence is at an all time high amongst the team in the finishing department and we are all looking forward to smashing our records! As we hope to top the previous year's estate agent runs, and to beat the one-day record of 34 estate agent brochures finished and dispatched; it'll take a mammoth effort from everyone but we believe we have the tools, the skills and the spirit to meet the challenge. We will keep you posted later ...