The £25m turnover Leeds-based company has also completed its first live customer job using the system.

Lettershop is using Kodak’s Stream S10 colour inkjet heads with a 108mm (4.25in) width and up to 188m/min print speed, mounted on a print tower of its own design.

The print tower is integrated with a flexible Scheffer offline finishing line that takes pre-printed litho reels up to 965mm wide. The inkjet heads are on rails and can be moved to any position on the web, and can be used for simplex or duplex printing.

The line is driven by GMC’s Printnet front end and also includes standard black and spot-colour print heads.

"We were trying to achieve a digital solution that would allow us to produce high-volume digital at a price point that people are prepared to pay in the market, and that achieves good ROI," explained chief executive John Hornby. "In one respect it’s the same as black personalisation – we’re leaving white space, but dropping in colour instead."

Lettershop’s tower has eight printheads side-by-side, along with bespoke drying technology that, uniquely, enables the company to print onto standard offset paper grades including coated, uncoated, gloss and silk.

Hornby described the performance of the S10 heads as "robust".

"Various things we have discovered during the development process have allowed us to move forward with this. We don’t pre-treat any of the paper and we have the ability to adjust for various paper qualities," Hornby added.

The first live job on the system was produced three weeks ago for travel company Jet2, and involved an attention-grabbing A5 mailer with stepped pages. The first two pages included variable holiday destinations showing full-colour images of resorts based on the customer’s previous trips, alongside ‘wildcard’ destinations. Early results from the 320,000 run is said to be encouraging.

Other potential applications include retail leaflets with ‘visual marketing’ coupons featuring product images, personalised mail order catalogue covers, and four-colour personalised envelopes.

Hornby said 10 clients were actively looking at using it. "Customers liked the idea of full-colour personalisation, but it would have been unaffordable before. We’ve broken the mould with this."