GRAPHIC DESIGN
TOWNPRINT has an in-house team of experienced graphic designers trained to make you look good on paper… or on
your signage. From a black and white business card, to a highest quality full colour catalogue to showcase your products,
a complete rebrand of your corporate identity including a new logo, or just a few minor tweaks to an existing design, our
artists are there to help. With up to four artists’ minds combined on your job, all with an in depth knowledge of what works
and what does not, this design team is well placed to deliver unique, working solutions to your design requirements.
We also subscribe to an image source with more than 24 million photos and images available to us.
OFFSET PRINTING
Offset printing remains the optimum method of achieving superior quality and best value on larger print volumes. The term
offset printing is used, because that’s exactly how the process works. Images on metal plates are transferred to rubber
blankets and then on to the print media, usually paper or card, but plastics and metals are often used.
RANGE OF STOCKS – Offset printing is used by larger commercial printers because of its speed, economy and the ability
to print on a huge range of different papers at the highest quality.
INKS – Offset printing is not restricted to just CMYK process printing. A huge range of metallic, flouro and PMS colour inks
is also available to further enhance your end product.
LARGE RUNS – Townprint has 1, 2 and 4 colour Heidelberg offset printing presses, which are ideal for large volume printing
of books, flyers, magazines, point of sale items, promotional materials, letterheads, manuals, brochures etc. The four
colour machines are the ones producing the full colour work in one pass. Heidelberg presses are recognised the world over
as world’s best. They are also proven to be the most productive, day in, day out.
If you require exceptional quality over a large run, offset is the answer, but don’t worry, we will advise you on the best option
for your job. We have digital presses available too when necessary.
DIGITAL PRINTING
Townprint was the second company in Queensland to go digital. Today we use KM digital presses. We deem them best
in their class.Digital printing means we download the print file directly to the press. If, as an example, you want 10 copies
of a 200 page manual, this is the way to go. Digital differs from offset printing in that there are no printing plates, there is
minimal wastage of ink and paper and the ink or toner does not permeate the paper. It is a thin layer on the surface of the
sheet.
WANT IT NOW – Digital Printing is fast and cost-effective for smaller quantities, with quality getting very close to offset.
VARIABLE DATA – Every piece printed on the digital press can be personalized with different names, addresses etc for a
direct mail campaign. Should you require 100 invitations, all with a different name and address, done. Numbering possibilities
on these machines is almost limitless… any size, any font, any color, any angle, any number of numbering boxes and
on any position on the sheet.
OPTIONS GALORE – Digital print options are almost boundless and there is a huge range of compatible papers and
cards. Our wide format Agfa Anapurna is also a digital press, and enables us to offer larger items on a variety of materials,
eg: window graphics, wall prints, pull up banners, A-frames, backlits, decals, stickers, signage, corflutes and poster printing
services. The UV inks used in this machine are extremely long lasting in the outdoor environment.
LETTERPRESS PRINTING
Where printing began… and still in big demand. Townprint has four Heidelberg letterpresses. These days we no longer use
moveable type on them. We use acid etched magnesium plates so the images we print are anything we can create on a
computer. These machines do all the die cutting, embossing, foiling, scoring, and the more complex numbering jobs. These
processes can turn a good print job into a spectacular print job.
EMBOSSING
Embossing is a letterpress process where we impress an image into card or paper, usually upwards on the front. Braille
is often embossed into cards. The image might be a floral arrangement on a wedding invite, a company logo on business
cards or letterheads, or a security seal on a function ticket… or whatever you can imagine. We call it blind embossing.
Some people call foiled printing embossing, but we don’t.
BROCHURES
A brochure can be whatever size you want, but it’s most cost effective to operate within the A series paper sizes we have
adopted in Australia. In our mind, a brochure is a higher quality advertising piece, printed on higher quality papers or cards,
usually full colour. It can range from a 1 sided sheet of paper describing the open house you are inspecting, to a 40 page
high quality production promoting the world class art display you are hosting.
POSTERS
Posters usually start at A4, then A3, A2 and beyond. The largest poster we have ever produced was 14 metres wide x 6
metres deep. The most common size we produce is A2. They are a one sided piece and can be printed on anything from
an inexpensive piece of paper to an expensive, long lasting outdoor synthetic paper. They can be tall and thin, short and
wide… there are really not a lot of rules here.
FLYERS
Flyers are usually a one or two sided sheet, often on an inexpensive paper and produced generally in larger volumes.
They are designed to get the word out. It might be a lost dog, a house down the road for sale, a new lawn mowing business
in your area or your local dentist promoting a discounted checkup. It might be black and white, two colour, or full
colour.
BOOKS
Townprint wants to print your book, magazine, annual report or newsletter. We can design, print and finish your book right
in our Aitkenvale factory. Book printing can be black and white or full colour or a mixture of both.
Usually book sizes range from A5 to A4 and all sizes between, and can be landscape or portrait. Papers used in books
include the full range, gloss matt, light, heavy…. there are no rules.
Our in house binding methods include saddle stitched, burst bound, perfect bound or plastic coil bound.
Plastic coil bind is most commonly used on school diaries, handbooks and technical manuals.
CALENDARS
Calendars are a popular method with businesses as they are a way to fly the flag for a full year.
They come in all shapes and sizes. We regularly produce saddle stitched book style A4 and A5 calendars, single sheet
A3 calendars, multi page tear off A3 calendars, wire bound calendars with wire hangers, desktop tent calendars, wall
calendars. Our most popular calendar is the A3 full colour calendar, scored for folding if going in the post, drilled at the
top for hanging. All our calendars can be foiled, embossed, matt or gloss celloglazed, spot UV to add that extra stand out
feature.
MAGNETS
Townprint first produced fridge magnets back in the early 1980’s. We had observed at open house displays that the lady
of the house had tidied everything up, put everything it its place… and there were magnets on the fridge door. We recognised
that this was acceptable practice and so decided to start producing them. First lot we did was for a local panelbeater,
who wanted flyers. I suggested he buy magnets and put one near the driver’s door handle on any car he thought
needed to see him. The result was huge… he came back, and back, for more, and more.
Magnets can be any size, full colour or single colour, and any shape you desire. We think that the fridge (or filing cabinet)
magnet is one of the best advertising methods.
CNC ROUTING
Our CNC Router is here to give your signs that extra dimension. We can add extra dimensions (layers) to your aluminium,
PVC, wood or acrylic sign. We can cut it to any shape you imagine, or you can simply just have round corners
instead of sharp square corners. Whatever we do with this machine, it will add that extra sense of quality or brilliance to
your sign. We have used it to cut custom garden panels for the keen gardener, even custom motor vehicle components.
Another popular product from this machine is individual cut acrylic lettering. This looks great on the front of the reception
counter.
DIE CUTTING
Die cutting is one of our letterpress processes. All our presentation folders are die cut as part of the production process.
A business card can be cut to a fancy shape, a book cover might have a window cut in it to expose particular content on
the first page inside. It will add to your cost, but it will certainly add to the impact of your job. It will be noticed.
COLLATING
This is the process were all the pages in your book, be it a docket book, or a highest quality catalogue, are placed in
the correct order. We have two modern collating lines. These machines have all types of detection devices on them to
ensure you don’t get double sheets, missed sheets, even poorly printed sheets. They are fast, accurate and efficient. On
the rare occasion, where a job is complex, we might even hand collate, but this is rare and would occur less than once a
year. Our collators are good, but no match for human intervention.
BINDING
Binding is a broad term covering quite a few different techniques to hold books or pads together. Townprint offers the
following types of binding…
Padding: Usually used on desktop calendars, note pads, worksheets etc.
Fanapart Padding: NCR forms in duplicate, triplicate, quadruplicate sets.
Saddle Binding: Or saddle stitching. Commonly used on A4 and A5 books up to 140 pages.
Side Stitching: Used on docket books. A couple of large steel staples through one edge of the book.
Quarter Binding: Used on docket books. Side stitched with hard covers, hinged and book tape on bound edge.
Perfect Binding: A square spined bind where the pages are heat glued inside a scored and folded card cover.
Burst Binding: Like a perfect bind, but the sheets are folded and perforated on the fold. Allows better adhesion.
Plastic Coil Binding: Lays perfectly flat. Sheets are punched, plastic coil inserted and terminated both ends.
DOCKET BOOKS
NCR paper is used exclusively in all our multi part docket books. Invoice books, consignment books, order books,
pocket size take 5 books and lots more. All our books come with a fold in back cover, used as a writing plate, and are
quarter bound. Soft covers available if best price is required. Docket books are usually printed one colour only, but we
do have quite a few clients who buy full colour docket books. Different sheet colours for each page in a set is most
common with black printed dockets only.
BUSINESS CARDS
Any size, any shape, any quantity and any material. We usually print business cards on both offset and digital presses,
but on occasions they are printed on a letterpress. We can print on any material from a lightweight card to a lump
of wood or metal. Prices vary immensely on business cards because of the huge range of options. Cards are often
foiled, die cut, verko (raised) printed, blind embossed, celloglazed. Some even apply several of these processes to
the one card. It’s all about getting noticed. We also print a large range of plastic cards for club memberships, keytags,
or even as straight business cards. These often have signature panels, barcodes or numbering on them.
STICKERS
Stickers come in any size, and many different substrates. They can be cut to any shape you require. How you want
to use them, how long you want them to last under your conditions of use and how much you want to pay will govern
the materials used. Stickers can be printed on a huge range of products, from self adhesive paper to long lasting self
adhesive vinyl with an outdoor life expectancy of up to five years. We print stickers by all processes, dependent upon
your requirement.
SIGNS
Townprint moved into signage in 2009. We produce a wide range of high quality signs from vinyl self adhesive fleetmarkers,
outdoor street signage on buildings, window signage, through to top end signage found at reception in professional
offices. It’s always pleasing to be in another state and see a national carrier’s truck go past with our signage.
Our signage is on some of the highest profile enterprises in Townsville.
A-FRAMES
Ever popular, the A-Frame sign gets used for everything. You see them on the footpath, you see them inside the building.
Sizes vary, from a small plastic A3 sign often used by real estate agents, up to a massive 1200mm high x 900mm
wide. The most common size is the 900mm high x 600mm wide. It’s stable outside, easily carried, can have corflute or
alu-panel inserts which can be changed in an instant.
BANNERS
Outside banners can be any size, any shape. They can come hemmed, not hemmed, with or without eyelets, and with
or without ropes. We use only the best grade banner material and combined with our UV printing process you can
expect a good life expectancy. We will need to know your conditions to answer this one properly. Banners are a great
way to attract attention for upcoming events, or to fly your flag at an event which you might be sponsoring. Installation
is quick and easy.
FLAGS
You see flags everywhere. The most popular is what we call the tear drop (or Bali) flag. There are many shapes and
sizes, with the banner size ranging from 2 metres high to 4 metres high. Bases for these are just as varied. We have
nine different bases available, from water filled bases to fascia mounted bases. Life expectancy on these is 6-12
months.