Keynote

If Carlsberg made keynotes… they’d choose the most successful female British Olympian of all time Dame Katherine Granger DBA and ACPME’s bright-eyed cheeky interviewer Jon Shears alongside his straight-man Stephen McCann.

The University of Glasgow’s new Chancellor kindly kicked the day off in style. Dame Katherine provided inspiring, effervescent and articulate answers to very our own Ant and Dec’s range of questions. The relaxed chat covered equality and diversity, motivation, team building, the future of HE, personal recovery from setbacks and keeping teams together with humour. A truly memorable keynote concluding with an amusing crescendo of 20 quick fire ‘yes it no’ questions that had Dame Katherine chuckling. A gold medal standard event opening.

Suppliers Forum

Antalis 
Dame Katherine was followed by Mike Collins who gave an ACPME  users’ perspective on Coala Interior Film. Our network love to see what other ACPME members are doing and enjoyed watching Richard and the team at Cardiff Met demonstrating what they’d done with Coala and how easy it is to apply.

Xerox 
Next came Kevin O’Donnell from Xerox who gave a talk called Powering Sustainable Print and Beyond. Cleverly picking up our conference graphics, Kevin touched on the impact of Covid and the changing landscape, before explaining how XMPie could help central print hubs with their communications and shape their digital future.

EFI
David Bowering of EFI was next to present their “Vision for the future’. His presentation introduced EFI PrintSmith Vision a comprehensive browser-based print MIS. David gave a live demo of the system’s capabilities while explaining some of its features.

The second session of the morning involved some fantastic lightning talks from ACPME members and more supplier showcases.

There’s nothing quite like seeing the work of peers and the differences they make to their institutions. The videos were truly inspiring and revealed fantastic work across the board, with many takeaways for that membership to remember.

Lightning talks

University of Leicester
The first  talk saw Ian Hickman and Glyn Johnson take us around the mighty Print Services off-campus production unit at the University of Leicester. They showed the equipment that they use to dress their campus with large format graphics, then took us on a tour of buildings they have transformed within the University and beyond including at Leicester’s Space Park. Examples of ambitious environmental graphics on a grand scale that really make a difference.

Loughborough University
The second talk of the session saw in-house photographer Phil Wilson share best practice about the creation mind-blowing swimming Pool of Dreams campaign. Along with Matt Cawrey, print account handler, he gave an informative and humorous talk detailing the project from conception through design and photography to installation. We learned about the equipment used, how best results were ensured and the impact of the campaign.

University of Glasgow
Next up was Raymond Dickson from the University of Glasgow. Raymond spoke proudly about how his team had moved on from printing thousands of Covid-related materials, during the pandemic, to large-scale environmental graphics involving new equipment and new found skills. We saw many projects, including a giant 10 x 8 meter large format mesh banner printed, joined, hemmed, eyeleted and hung to cover scaffolding on the University Chapel. It was easy to see why their Benny Hill style animation was such a hit on the University’s Twitter feed.

Suppliers Forum

Ricoh 
The first came from Ricoh who discussed transforming communications and value-added services through multichannel marketing including Personalised prospectuses, sensualised print services as well as their latest technologies.

Printvision 
Printvision’s talk highlighted the capabilities of their company, the people involved and how they helped companies through COVID-19 with social distancing materials. They showcased some of their environmental product range and how they had scooped entrepreneurship awards for service and innovation.

Keynote

The afternoon started with ACPME friend and creative software wizard Tony Harmer. We said be prepared to pick your jaws up off the floor and that’s just what viewers had to do. With infectious charm, Tony spun Adobe magic from time-saving new AI selections in Photoshop, to (at last) realistic live 3D text filters, super-easy new masking in Lightroom and whizzy new additions to Premiere Pro and After Effects. A genius at work. Time spent watching Tony means time saved down the line.

Tony was followed by more Lightning Talk from our members.

Lightning talks

University of Bristol
First up was a new face to ACPME Lawrence Flavell, Print Services Manager at the University of Bristol. Lawrence introduced himself, before giving a quick tour of Bristol’s printroom. He discussed their recent move into Post and fulfilment and the value that their Iridesse press is now providing.

Robert Gordon University
The Gatehouse at followed with a masterclass in creating accessible PDFs using Adobe Indesign. This comprehensive tutorial is one to watch at your own speed. Give the team at The Gatehouse, Rovert Gordon University a call if you run into any difficulty.

University of Wolverhampton
The final Lightning Talk came from Gae Forbes. Gae started by explaining how her team coped during Covid and the impact of the pandemic on print volumes. We were then treated to another excellent virtual printroom tour. I’m sure everyone will agree that seeing where each other work, the equipment used across the network and the scope of each other’s work is invaluable. Now we all know who to turn to for short-run foiling onto digital print.

Sector insights

Jonathan Tame, Managing Director, of Two Sides and the BPIF British Printing Industries Federation provided the final presentations of the day.

Jonathan talked about ‘Paper’s Place in a Post Pandemic World’ and what Two Sides can offer ACPME members.

Darren Shepherd and Dawn Reid from the BPIF informed us of print industry facts and figures, provided a general overview of the trade, before covering what they offer their community – from environmental roadmaps and training.  

Close

ACPME Board members closed a memorable day by thanking all speakers and those behind the scenes.

Even in times of adversity the #ACPMEfamily assembles: stronger together as a supportive and encouraging network.