Australia gets new Colour Standard

Strange as it may seem, but to date there has been no Australian Standard by which clients or printers could prove or match printed product to the colours specified by the ad agency or the client. Instead they relied upon the skill and eyesight of their print operators matching a proof to the finished product. They then tweak and adjust the highly sophisticated multi-million dollar high speed printing presses to obtain the desired result.

The Lithographic Institute of Australia (LIA) – an independent technology based organisation, identified the need for Australia to come into line with the rest of the world or get seriously isolated and left behind in the standards race. They partnered with the industry’s peak body the Printing Industries Association of Australia and together had stewardship for introducing the new standard and a comprehensive educational web site for the industry. The new standard AS 12647-2 replicates the ISO standard used in Europe, America and Asia.

According to the National Chairman of the AU/TC 130 group, Philip Andersen “it is essential that the industry embraces and adopts the new Standard if it is to keep work in Australia and have a chance of competing internationally. The global market place is very much a reality for Australian printers and while our print quality has been exceptionally high in comparison to many overseas printers, we have not been able to validate the integrity of the print process unlike our overseas competitors. By obtaining compliance validation to systems that are based upon the Australian and International Standard it means that we will start clawing back the four year lag that Australia is behind Europe.”

It has been proven that there are significant cost savings to be gained by implementing the new standard as well as reliability of colour reproduction across different printers and locations.

The new standard was keenly supported and welcomed by the National Print Awards Board and three of the industry’s print powerhouses: Offset Alpine Printing, HannanPrint, and Craft Inprint. Each congratulated the TC 130 group on having the vision, expertise and collective will-power to make this a reality.

In an industry that is undergoing rapid technological advancement and overseas competitive cost pressures it remains only to see how well printers understand the commercial imperatives to implement the new standard. With a multi-coloured koala as their logo, and their slogan “your pathway to world quality,” their web site (www.colourstandards.com.au) offers all the advice needed to embrace the new international / Australian standards for printing.