December 10, 2008 - Industrie Forum Design Hannover (iF) has presented the Eurobind 4000 adhesive binder from Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) with the iF product design award 2009. The Eurobind 4000 produces paperbacks, magazines, annual reports and image brochures. The international judging panel selected a total of 802 winners out of 2,808 entries. 1,025 companies from 39 countries took part in the competition. The judges, all specialists in their relevant field, award the iF design seal to products that meet all the requirements for contemporary design by satisfying a comprehensive range of criteria. The Eurobind 4000 won in the Industry/Skilled Trades category. Since 1990, Heidelberg has won a total of 16 iF design seals for its prepress, press, and postpress products.

Design mirrors high-tech nature of products
The new Eurobind 4000 adhesive binder reflects key elements of the Heidelberg corporate design. These include values such as quality, exclusivity, performance, appeal, and passion. The geometric structure and large surfaces with distinctive elements are key features of the product design. "We want our products to have an unmistakable look, and want to stand out from our competitors through our design," explains Eckhard Köbler, Head of Heidelberg Industrial Design.

The Eurobind 4000 has a modular design that delivers exceptional flexibility and ease of use. This also helps to boost ergonomics and reliability in production processes. For example, because the adhesive binder is fully encapsulated with large, wide-opening windows, users can visually monitor production processes on the fly and components can be accessed quickly during setup. Operators use the local touchscreen concept to control the entire configuration during makeready. This dramatically reduces the distances operators need to cover during makeready, thereby cutting setup times significantly. Various settings are identified via intuitive symbols that are used consistently on all Heidelberg machines, a feature which adds to the user-friendly credentials of the machine.

A team of ten works in the Industrial Design department at Heidelberg, which is a regular recipient of international design awards. Heidelberg Industrial Design (www.design.heidelberg.com) has also been offering its services to other companies since the end of 2007.

The iF product design awards will be presented in Hannover on the first day of CeBIT, March 3, 2009. Further information: www.ifdesign.de.