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HOWARD’S WORLD

Howard

When it was time to go BIG!

How the VLF (Very Large Format Printing) Offset Press Found Redemption on a Billboard.

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Howard

THE SAGACITY OF RUPERT MURDOCH

Rupert Murdoch understood well importance of advertising in the lives of consumers. Content alone wasn’t enough; it had to be eyeball-snatching to grab and hold us.

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Howard

RISE OF THE PHOENIX

The mythical Phoenix, the immortal bird that is said to flame out and die after a five-hundred-year lifespan, only to be reborn, is a fitting metaphor for the history of the printing industry.

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Howard

WHERE HAVE ALL THE WORKERS GONE?

Nick looks at the problems faced by print companies today in attracting staff.

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Howard

What’s in a Name: THE STORY OF KBA’S NAME CHANGE

The year 2017 held a special significance to the Koenig & Bauer-Albert Group, which for decades was known simply as KBA.

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Howard

CANADA’S LARGEST BANKRUPTCY AMONG PRINTING INDUSTRY SUPPLIERS.

A Shell Game that ended in Mystery: The Rise and Fall of Gaston Lefebvre’s Printing Material Ltd.

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Howard

Tomorrow Never Dies! – Robert Maxwell’s Rise & Fall

The extraordinary story of how crook and press baron Robert Maxwell came to own the largest used machinery dealer in the world.

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Howard

HARRIS LSB - THE LITTLE OFFSET PRESS THAT WENT TO WAR

Nick explores the history of a long-forgotten forerunner of today’s small offset presses, and tells the story of how he saved an abandoned early example and lovingly restored it to life for the Howard Iron Works Museum.

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Howard

ULINE’S CHALLENGE TO PRINT’S NAYSAYERS

Online purchasing is no longer something novel: almost everyone surfs the net to buy or sell goods and services.

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Howard

AFTER ME YOU'RE FIRST

Roland has been churning out offset technologies since 1911 when the soon legendary brand “ROLAND” would be first bolted to the side of a press.

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Howard

ALVA AND HIS NEWSPAPER

To think Edison began his life journey as a Printer is worth remembering. Who said the best and brightest minds don’t have ink in their blood?

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Howard

A TALE OF TWO BROTHERS (PART Two)

Then there were two; brothers that is. Besides growing up in the family business, all similarities end. Siegfried, Fred Tanzer played a pioneering role in the Canadian Printing scene.

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Howard

A TALE OF TWO BROTHERS (PART ONE)

For decades it would have been near impossible to find anyone involved in the UK printing scene who didn’t know Tanzer - an outstanding human being and printing equipment salesman.

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Howard

FLUTE: PRINT’S GOLDEN GOOSE

According to Dublin-based Research and Markets, corrugated board sales are growing fast, with USD262.61 billion in 2019, and expected to grow to USD339.95 billion in 2025.

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Howard

TRIPPING OVER THE OBVIOUS – PRINT’S ROLE MODERNIZING THE WORLD

Printing industry annals are filled with tales of often major inventions that eclipsed the graphic arts world while providing new inventions for all of mankind.

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Howard

CHINA: BREAKING ALL THE RULES

The China success story is one of resilience and a constant push for more-more-more. They are easy to do business with while never refusing to climb whatever mountain appears on the horizon.

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Howard

TWO REMARKABLE GENTLEMEN FROM WINNIPEG

Nick looks at the history of a thriving Canadian print company owned by a family who have built their business on integrity and straight dealing, and who became his firm friends

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Howard

THE ART OF BEING CREDIBLE: LIFE AS AN EQUIPMENT APPRAISOR

Nick looks at his role, over many years, as a valuer/appraiser of the assets of printing companies. Giving a fair and accurate valuation doesn’t always make you popular, and there are adventures and mishaps along the way…

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Howard

Wish You Were Here

Nick takes a sidelong look at the spectacular rise and then decline of the Postcard. But he has reason to believe it will grow again and can thrive in the age of the email.

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Howard

The Ultimate Disruptor: AUGUST 7, 1956

How a father and son team in New York state started a company whose products have affected the way every offset press works, and along the way made the great leap that has given us the modern offset convertible perfector.

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Howard

Cornering the market: Offset's early attempts at Mercantilism

Nick takes a look at the development of the first rotary offset presses, and the disastrous attempts of the early pioneers to control the market. He asks if manufacturers today have learned from their predecessors’ mistakes.

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Howard

When the Next-Thing Isn’t

The path to the modern rotary offset press was not as straight or obvious as one might imaging. The quest to reproduce photographic quality in print led to many false starts towards false dawns. One of these was direct litho. Nick Howard, our resident historian of the development of the printing processes, explores some of the paths that finished in dead ends.

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Howard

US POLITICS IN TURMOIL AND THE BIRTH OF THE FOLDING CARTON INDUSTRY

Nick ruminates on Trump’s America today and the dynamism of young inventors of a century ago who changed our packaging industry.

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Howard

FIRE AND BRIMSTONE: THE GREAT AWAKENING OF JOHN THOMSON

The Gally-Universal press continues to be called something that it isn't; a Clamshell platen. The correct designation is a Parallel Impression platen. Merritt Gally's brilliant invention and John Thomson's improvements have stood the test of time.

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Howard

Stroke of Genius: Robert Miehle’s Breakthrough

There was an old slogan Miehle often used: "You Never Hear of a Miehle Press Being Scrapped." Robert Miehle was no-doubt proud of that phrase and, more importantly, at how, as a young man of twenty-three, lying on his back in a noisy and hot Chicago pressroom, discovered such a breakthrough that would change the face of Print for almost 60 years!

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Howard

2020’s Best Printing Press?

Every press manufacturer builds fantastic equipment that, given the right set of circumstances, would be a wise choice. Ranking these companies is misleading to anyone not coming in at the top spot. The best way to rank presses is to weigh other factors, including price, service response time, and your own experience and bias.

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Howard

Not Everything Turns to Gold

This past March, amid a world-wide pandemic, news from the world’s largest printing press manufacturer may have caught some in the industry by surprise. Heidelberg’s much-touted collaboration with Fujifilm, developing the world’s first inkjet 40-inch press, was ending.

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Howard

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER COVID-19 FOR PRINT

Fasten your seat belts! Our mighty Print industry will need to be brilliantly creative to win some of it back. 

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Howard

Operation Bernard: HOW THE NAZIS ALMOST WON THE WAR

S.S. officer, Arthur Nebe had a devious plan. As the head of the Reichskriminalpolizeiamt (central criminal investigation department) in Berlin, the ruthless killer came up with an idea of forging British currency.

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Howard

ALL FOR THE SAKE OF A SCREW

Uniform world standards matter. Partisan and national pride, when blocking the path of progress, stifle efficiencies which in turn eat away at free enterprise’s role as innovators.

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Howard

A Stroke of Genius: "But… ink and water don't mix!"

Another decade has arrived, and with it, new optimism for a fledgling print industry. Digital inkjet continues to elbow its way into pressrooms around the world.

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Howard

AN APPLE AND AN EGG – HISTORY REPEATED?

Recent world events expose lessons learned during the last one hundred years; if we don’t learn from our mistakes, we are bound to repeat them.

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Howard

EVERY DOG HAS HIS DAY

Nick looks at the buzz created by innovative technology, including LED UV which allows printers to create dramatic effects with ink and varnish, but asks whether passing trends can ever be compete with great design and interesting typography.

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Howard

Getting an Education

A nightmare press installation on the 8th floor over 30 years ago gets Nick reflecting on the changes in the industry since then, and how some of the biggest printers of the time could not change to meet them.

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Howard

The Mouse and the Elephant

Five years have passed since the dramatic announcement between Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Ryobi Limited to form a unique partnership and combine their offset press resources under a new name: RMGT. Let's look back at how this all came about and what the future looks like.

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Howard

Don’t Over Complicate Recycling

Recycling is in the cross hairs today and over the last twelve months it’s heating up to a point where climate change shares top billing with our growing trash problem. Print can play a lead role and prosper in recycling.

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Howard

THE REMARKABLE BIRTH & EVOLUTION OF THE SPEEDMASTER

Heidelberg excels at product support and superior customer interaction. Whether it be training or spare parts and service, Heidelberg leads by instilling rigour in its quest to connect the German factory with the Printshop.

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Howard

OUT WITH THE OLD. . . WOAA, NOT SO FAST!

Faster and cheaper are the two targets for laser. Truly amazing creations and intricate cut out patterns are eyeball drawing and seductive, but will the printing industry sell enough or will they become loss leaders? 

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Howard

The Little Wonder

How two brothers rocked the Printing World

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Howard

THE OUTLIERS AMONG US

In today’s print marketplace radical technologies are coming fast and furious. History always repeats itself. Suspicion of change of any type is the hardest human trait to break.

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Howard

BUILT LIKE A TANK, But Far From Invulnerable

Nick looks at the future of the iron monsters which have dominated pressrooms for a century: will the offset press makers survive the surge in digital growth by collaborating with the “enemy,” or is the hybrid press just a last gasp before final extinction

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Howard

HARD CASE AVERTED

Nick looks at the tactile charm of hard-cover books, and how their popularity is defying expectations.

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Howard

WHEN A DEAL IS A DEAL... UNTIL IT ISN’T!

Nick looks at how a great press manufacturer fell a victim of Wall Street greed and was then a pawn in an epic battle between Heidelberg and Komori – with the loser being the winner!

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Howard

Cutting to the Chase – the re-birth of Letterpress?

Print-fanatic and museum-owner Nick takes a wry look at industry changes and at the growing band of enthusiasts who have fallen in love with the letterpress process.

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Howard

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Even though technology is constantly changing, one thing seems to never alter: our inability to see the future. Nick takes a wry look at how industry gurus of the 1960’s saw the future of print: some quite bizarre but others prescient. So unstrap your jet-packs and settle down to a fascinating read…

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Howard

The American System of Manufactures and What it can teach Us Today.

Nick shows how the American System of Manufactures, developed to save labour in the late 18th century, spread to the printing equipment industry worldwide and is relevant today if we want to run efficient and profitable businesses.

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Howard

DU PONT: THE EXPLOSIVE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF A PRINT INDUSTRY PIONEER

DuPont made Print better and cheaper to produce and in the end made us also a lot of money. Now with a 2017 merger with Dow Chemical completed, Dow-DuPont is a 73 billion dollar operation that started with a “bang”.

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Howard

MADE IN JAPAN: KOMORI’S METHODICAL RISE TO THE TOP

It all started on October 20 1923 when Komori Machinery Works was formed as a private business. The Print World was just awakening to the new phenomenon called offset lithography and Komori entered an immature market.

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Howard

HOW FRIEDRICH KOENIG LOST THE BATTLE BUT ENDED UP WINNING THE WAR!

Friedrich Koenig was a Genius! If you visit either KBA’s Würzburg headquarters or the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, you will see just how advanced – and complicated his now famous “The Times” press (of 1814) is.

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SCHNEIDER SENATOR – A HISTORY HUMBLE BEGINNINGS, TRAGEDY AND TRIUMPHANT INVENTIONS

One of Germany’s largest guillotine manufacturers experienced a difficult time when it filed for bankruptcy during the period of 1991 -1992. But today under the helm of Gerhard Busch GmbH, Schneider has again risen to lay claim as one of the world’s best guillotine manufacturers.

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RISE & FALL OF THE HALF WEB: HOW THE IRON CURTAIN BROUGHT FORTH A REVOLUTION IN PRINT

If you were born in the 1950’s and chose “printing” as an occupation, then you already know how this all played out. Pressrooms in the majority of larger commercial printers, typically employed monster size sheetfeds. Sheetfed printing presses were big!

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GRAND OPENING OF THE TIMOTHY UPTON LIBRARY

On December 16, 2016, family and friends gathered at Howard Graphic Equipment’s new facility to inaugurate and pay homage to a Printing Industry legend. Mrs. Helen Upton, daughters Julie and Heather, son Anthony, spouses and all the grandchildren were joined by industry leaders from past and present.

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CAPITAL INVESTMENT FOR PRINTERS

Nick Howard, with more than four decades of experience in capital investment spending specifically within the printing industry, recently spoke at a seminar discussing what printing-company managers need to consider when evaluating emerging offset, inkjet and toner technologies for real-world production.

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THE LIFE, DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF MANROLAND

An air of gloom hung over the Offenbach and Augsburg offices of a once powerful press building empire. It was the fall of 2011. November 25 to be exact. Court appointed receiver/administrator: Werner Schneider, was busy trying to close a deal.

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NAVIGATING PRINT’S CHANGING LANDSCAPE

Our industry has always been one of change. Processes, machinery, customers – never stay in one place for long. The past brought new concepts to market. Events like Drupa being portals to what we will buy and how we can use it.

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University of Michigan’s acquires an 1851 Columbian Press from Howard Iron Works

On April 11, 2016, after 2 1/2 years and an over $17-million dollar renovation, the Clements Library has re-opened. Besides the extensive 80,000 books and 30,000 maps, Clements now has another piece of history and as rare as some of the treasures on the shelves.

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THE EVOLUTION OF HEIDELBERG

For the most part, the press rooms of the world are dominated by four major players – Heidelberg, KBA, manroland and Komori. It was not always so. In earlier years, Harris and Miehle (mostly with their Roland presses) controlled the major share.

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THE BRITON

An old friend of my father once told me this amusing story of a trip they made almost 30 years ago. Both were crossing the Canadian border into America and rolled up in front of a US customs agent. “Nationality” barked the officer. “British” replied my father. “

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