CARBON8 WELCOMES LIA ON TOUR

Multi-award-winning print business, Carbon8, gave members of the NSW LIA a tour of its facility, and an insight into its business yesterday.

The two dozen printers on the tour were hosted by Carbon8 owners Peter Musarra and Kenneth Beck-Pedersen, with the tour moving from the factory on to Marrickville Bowling Club for dinner and a Q&A session afterwards.

Musarra told guests the business started to meet the needs of creatives, agencies and photographers for high-end, on-demand, short run print. He said, “We were early adopters of HP Indigo, which meant we could print on a wide variety of stocks in high quality.”

He said, “We don’t promote ourselves as the best, I don’t think anyone can do that, but we do aim to be the best that we can.”

Outlining part of the strategy of the business, which was established 17 years ago, Ken Beck-Pedersen said, “You will see when we go into the factory that we have a large amount of equipment, our approach is to produce as much as we can inhouse, to give us control over time and quality.”

Carbon8 has continued to operate at the high-end of the market working in short runs. Beck-Pedersen said, “We can categorise most of our work as bespoke marketing collateral. We are not producing commodity print.”

On the tour of the factory Beck-Pedersen and Mussara highlighted the way the company uses its print equipment in innovative ways to create luxury effects, for instance using its large format flatbed printer to produce raised graphics on book covers. Beck-Pedersen said, “We probably come at print a different way than most businesses.”

Guests saw a variety of equipment with an B2 HP indigo 12000 and an SRA3 HP Indigo, a full range of inkjet systems with latex, eco-solvent and aqueous roll-to-roll systems from HP, Epson and Roland DG, with a wide range of finishing solutions, including section sewing.

Carbon8 now operates from the old Blake & Hargreaves factory in Marrickville, and in keeping with old print traditions it offered guests a beer from its inhouse keg, which was welcomed by all.

LIA NSW president Angus Scott thanked Musarra and Beck-Pedersen for making the guests feel so welcome, and for being transparent about their business.