Delhi-based Avantika Printers has M N Pandey, a teacher of mathematics in Ayodhya at the helm. A man who is prone to uttering maxims like: "Digital is the grandson of print – and it is definitely the future."

Even as we were speaking, a Canon C7010 was being installed. It is the third press from Canon. The earlier installations are 1135 for mono-work, 7000 for colour and a mono printer from Xerox.

Even so, it would be folly to reduce Avantika to a mere digital print firm. The firm has a screen printing facility and post-press kit, which produces an array of ingenious print jobs.

Pandey, director at Avantika, says: "I believe four things create a great job – men, machines, implementation of the latest technologies. And above all, the vision of the head of the organisation."

Coming together of the four themes ensures Avantika  is "experimental in our working."

Avantika accepts all the high and mighty complex jobs, which are rejected by the big players. Pandey says: "We’ve printed on the maximum size sheet 12.5in x 46in." Pandey adds: "People in our industry are not early adopters of technology. I have launched 11 magazines, and it has benefited my team in print creation."

Pandey showed some of his best works to us over two days – with childlike ebullience. These included coffee table books (with hard bound covers), printing on plastic paper and fabrication of micro-text on acrylic sheets and scroll, plus virtuoso bits of fabrications.

The top jobs at Avantika

1. Coffee table book for Cairn India (Energy of India) in which the picture details and its colour density stood out. This is important because the raw files were not good. And so, the files needed 15 days of work in the pre-press department. Most of the colour was rendered in-house. Avantika selected Impressive Ivory Natural paper and light board for the cover. FM screening was possible but digital was preferred due to its tonality.  Fifty digital copies with consistent colours were produced.
   
   
2. Short Story of a Long Pipeline was printed on coated paper. The key was to get a balance for the double spreads and ensure the visuals were vivid – and pipelines did not get distorted in the "gutter". Avantika did R&D and produced an acrylic cover with letter prototyping and engraved alphabets. 30 digital copies of the book were distributed in a specially designed sleeve case for the book.
   
   
3. Technical brochure – From Frontiers to Mature Basins – which had impressive seven-folds and a gate-fold size of 42 inches. 50 copies of the brochure were produced along with reverse printing and micro-text. Once again, acrylic was deployed as a novelty and for brand differentiation. Avantika produced six different prototypes of the same brochure for the client.
   
   
4. The Ravva book box – was earlier produced through offset printing. Avantika produced 300 copies digitally. The job was well-appreciated, and they got repeated orders. All pages had spot UV coating with the best part being the special packing, wherein the binding was immaculate. Later the company produced two other jobs for high-value property dealers with a 5mm engraved wooden cover (25 copies); and a hardbound brochure (100 copies) plus soft bound copies (100 copies) with foam on cover and folding posters in a docket. The highpoint was: the play with two types of materials.
   
   
5. Metso mailer – had three elements: the packing, printing on scroll, and fabrication of the manual. The best part of this job is: the invite was printed on a scroll through screen printing – for which great care was taken to procure perfect mesh for ink transfer. The fabrication was manual. Only 30 copies. In addition, there was the menu card of A D Singh’s gourmet restaurant Chandni Chowk, which saw printing on white and mounting on a paperboard.  Plus the China Gold invites, which were printed on metallic paper since it is scratch paper – and had an iota of UV to highlight the design features. Even as we’re examining a personalised card for Taj Hotel for the Sarkozys when they visited Delhi, a call comes from a book publisher who is seeking print on-demand solutions. This means short-runs from five to 50 copies. And Pandey is suggesting half a dozen options.

The customer chose digital tonality to FM screening


Perfect double spreads with clean "gutters"


Special covers – and an acrylic cover is one of them


             Personalised invitation cards Taj Mahal Hotel


Seven folds with gate-fold size of 42 inches


Super specialisation in the fabrication of boxes

---

M N Pandey's Printing Mantras

Spread the knowledge among employees and buyers. It’s the only way to dispel ignorance in our industry.

More than good machines and good technology what our industry requires is: wastage control.

The owner’s villa or bungalow should not be bigger than his printing plant.

Strange but true: Digital manufacturers talk of things like personalisation but curiously enough their own campaigns rarely reflect it.

Say yes to Karmyug. Say no to Kalyug.

Cost management is better than under-cutting.

The bigger the owner’s chair, the more pointed the thorns.

A printer is like a doctor who administers medicines to a needy patient. A patient doesn’t ask the doctor to negogiate the price of the prescription bill.