Australia Post will increase unaddressed mail prices from the end of September, and has applied to increase the base postage rate by 10 cents from January.

The current furore over packaging often overrides the reality that sustainability issues may be complex; however, Australia has great minds working on it, guests heard at the inaugural Global Table forum in Melbourne this week.

Label industry veteran Chris Moretto has started a new label printing business, Graphic Labels, six years after moving to Sydney from Toulouse in France. Moretto is targeting the food and chemical industries for his new venture.

Mark Shergill's Focus Press has bought the customer list and most of the equipment of collapsed Sydney print business Reactiv, and brought over half a dozen of the 20 staff.

Leading end-to-end industry solutions supplier Starleaton is sponsoring the Ballarat International Foto Biennale which is currently running, and has produced a stunning outdoor graphic on its Alumigraphics material to light up the show.

Roland DG is launching a new 30” UV flatbed benchtop printer that it says will print high quality images onto a range of both rigid and flexible materials – such as leather and fabric – for realistic effect images.

Melbourne Business School professor Mark Ritson says print is the real deal when it comes to marketing, pointing to the soaraway success of start up travel business TripADeal, which spends heavily on print newspaper advertising.

Intense lobbying over several months has seen the PVCA (formerly PIAA) win a review of the National Skills Needs List from the government, with the aim of getting print and packaging on the List, and so being able to receive government assistance for training.

The country's largest printable materials supplier Ball & Doggett is launching a campaign to reward customers for their Avery Dennison wide format purchases.

The Judges' Choice Award at the Real Media Collective Awards on Friday night was the Aldi Supermarkets 'Christmas: The More the Merrier 18' catalogue, printed by Ovato.

In another twist to a story that has already left many in the industry with their jaws on the floor, the Skope Group building in Castle Hill does not in reality have any signage – the image in the corporate marketing appears to have been photoshopped on.

Sign industry spewing as Clear Skies – t/a signmaking outfit Skope Group Manufacturing Services – is successfully steered into a DOCA, which has seen 70 per cent of its $2.3m debt disappear from its books, a debt which will now be pushed onto the taxpayer and the rest of the signage industry.

Digital inkjet print solutions developer Durst is setting up its own direct ANZ subsidiary, with current face of the company here Matt Ashman installed as its managing director.

The plant and equipment at liquidated WA print business Picton Press is up for auction, with Slattery's setting Tuesday 10 Sept as closure date for bids.

Outdoor giant oOh! Media is blaming the subdued economic activity around the May election for a 24 per cent slump in its profits in its first half results.

Australian online print and promotional products portal Redbubble has posted a profit for the first time since its IPO, as it aims to hit $1bn in sales.