March 21, 2008 - KBA North America, a global press manufacturer based in Williston, Vermont, is announcing a new campaign for its award-winning Genius 52 UV 20-inch sheetfed offset press that demonstrates its flexibility, productivity, and income-generating ability. The campaign poses the question, “Paper or Plastic?” describing how jobs can be easily and successfully produced on paper, plastic or board. More information can be found at www.kba-usa.com/genius52.

“One of the many attributes about our popular Genius 52 UV press is its ability to easily move between printing on paper and plastic substrates,” says Holger Garbrecht, president and CEO of KBA North America. “This gives printers a small-footprint one-operator press that produces beautiful high-quality coated jobs on traditional paper, unique plastic substrates, or board. The Genius 52 UV has helped many of our customers become more profitable by being able to offer high-end lenticular, plastic, or board jobs in very short-run lengths.”

The Genius 52 UV, which received the prestigious GATF InterTech in 2006, is the world’s first waterless UV sheetfed offset press. The maximum sheet size is 14 3/16 x 20” and it operates at 8,000sph. The unique press features keyless inking, waterless technology, extended delivery and dryers is designed to print on a variety of paper, board and plastics such as lenticular, ABS, PVC, PC etc. It features an automatic plate changing device that guarantees short set-up times, reliable reproducibility, and brilliant offset quality. The Genius 52 control console features a touch screen display that can be slid from one end of the press to the other for easy press operator access. The press prints in five colors with UV curing inks that rapidly and completely harden through an efficient integrated drying system thus allowing further processing such as laminating or punching immediately afterwards with no waiting period required.

Recently the press received an optional inline extended coating unit. This is the first time a dedicated coater has been available on the Genius, allowing it to supply a high gloss to all its jobs inline. The first dedicated coater has been installed on the KBA demo unit in Williston, Vermont. Six presses have been installed with the coater in Europe and it will be demonstrated at Drupa as well. The coater is currently available now in North America for new press installations.

One of the key features of the Genius 52 UV is its ability to produce 3D and lenticular printing. Lenticular printing is a special technique that involves printing an image on the back side of lenticular plastic, allowing the eye to simultaneously view alternating sections of multiple images to give the impression of 3-D, flip, or motion. Lenticular printing can be used for a variety of different print jobs, such as packaging, point-of-purchase, direct mail, collectibles, premiums, magazine covers and inserts, art posters, and large format jobs creating an eye-catching pitch and an additional revenue booster.

Motion Imaging, Inc., a nationwide retailer and manufacturer of 3-D motion lenticular products based in Farmingdale, N.Y., uses its KBA Genius 52 UV press for both the retail and custom manufacturing markets. The retail market includes high-quality posters, magnets, cups, notebooks, portfolios, calendars, and point-of-purchase displays with brilliant 3D imagery featuring the likenesses of different Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR), National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and National Hockey League, as well as Disney and Nickelodeon characters. These items are sold at large chain retailers throughout the United States. The custom manufacturing market features certain items for a particular company not sold through the retail outlets by Motion Imaging. For example, the firm produced a specialized 3-D lenticular box for the new Transformer movie.

“I found that the Genius from KBA produces high-quality lenticular pieces,” says Robert Thompson, president of Motion Imaging. “We depend on the quality and fast production of the Genius. The Genius has given us higher quality, faster turnaround, and more production.”