(December 14, 2008) Polestar Wheatons is increasing its digital colour production capacity by 30 per cent with the installation of an HP Indigo 3250 press.

This investment comes as the company continues to experience an increase in demand for high quality digital print, as managing director Andrew Lee explains: “We will be in a position to offer cutting edge, high quality digital print to all existing and new customers, and we are delighted to be expanding our portfolio with the ability to produce litho-equivalent print, in up to seven colours and on a vast array of substrate weights.”

A first digital colour web press for the company, it joins HP Indigo 5500 and 5000 colour presses, the latter only commissioned in April 2008. A mono Oce 9210 web press, which was also commissioned less than 12 months ago, and a mono Digimaster complete an impressive digital portfolio at the company’s Exeter site.

Andrew Lee continues: “The new press complements our already substantial digital service, and will benefit our customers by offering a more economical print solution on small run titles and by doing so, an opportunity to reduce storage costs and wastage.”

The HP Indigo 3250 will be installed in January, to be fully operational by the end of February. Polestar Wheatons is one of the few companies in the group to offer both digital and offset production, with five offset sheet fed machines and a web offset Timson 48pp ZMR press completing the line-up, alongside extensive binding facilities.

Polestar Wheatons serves the publishers of academic books and journals, directories and catalogues as well as short run magazine titles. The company gained its FSC/PEFC accreditations in November 2007.