Essay Print went into administration with insolvency practitioner Geoffrey Martin and Co on 9 July 2008 and was bought out the following day by Collective.

All 20 staff at Essay Print have been brought across to Collective, however managing director Tony Sidebottom said he will be assessing the requirements of the former Essay Print staff over the next month.

As well as the staff, Collective has taken on the good will of the business along with several pieces of kit – primarily an Inca Columbia flatbed large-format digital press.

Sidebottom said: "Essay's business was cut between litho and large format digital; we looked at the business and decided we could do a lot of the litho work on our machines.

"What the new business does is lead us into large-format digital printing – we would hope to hold on to the majority of Essay's customer base. We currently have around a £3.3m turnover and we will be geared to reaching £4m in the next 18 months."

Collective has two locations in Leeds – one was previously the site of Mansion House Press, which was amalgamated into Collective in February this year.

The company runs a Roland B2 five-colour with coater, a B2 Komori five-colour, an SRA2 Lithrone four-colour, a Konica Minolta 6500 and the Inca. It also has a host of finishing equipment.