L&S Printing’s winning entry to the Digital Printer Awards

 

On its first time entering, L&S Printing not only won the Digital Printer Awards’ Large Format category, but also took away the Supreme Award. Was this beginners luck or is there something special to be found at the Worthing-based printer? Michal Lodej went to see.

L&S Printing pulled off a bit of a coup last November at the Digital Printer Awards 2015. The company, which had never submitted an award entry before, came away with two gongs, winning both the wide format category and the Supreme Award.

‘We felt we had a good chance of being nominated, and on the day I had a look at the other entries and I thought, okay we might have a chance of winning this, but to win the Supreme Award was a complete surprise,’ said Tony McInerney, business strategy manager.

It was down to Mr McInerney that the company even entered at all. On his recent appointment at the company, he made it his mission to raise its profile and entering the Digital Printer Awards was a perfect way to do so. 

The company entered a job for Virgin Media, setting up V Festival’s Louder Lounge. The brief was to create an upmarket VIP hospitality area, and required the company to work alongside the Virgin Media marketing team, design agency ITCH and installation company Illusion.

Virgin Media has been a client of L&S for some time and this was the third year that the company has produced the Louder Lounge at V Festival.

The job used a total of 11 different substrates in a wide range of different applications including polycril fabric, MDF, foam PVC and vinyl leading the judges to say of the entry: ‘Quality, scale and complexity of this entry truly shows what can be done with large format, and creative design.’

Mr McInerney added: ‘Because of the versatility of the project, we thought that it would definitely be a contender for the prize. There were many different aspects to think about and understanding how it would look in its environment both day and night was a key challenge. For me it’s one of the best examples of what a large format unit can do.

‘We were new to the business of entering awards, and we thought we would get a nomination, but in the wide format category it is different than, say, the Books category as the judges can’t see the work in front of them and hold it in their hands. But with the wide format category you have to try and show it off as best you can in pictures.’

What the company did enter in fact was a very well made photobook, showing the job throughout its installation and then finished, full of festival goers, which proved to be an excellent example of how to present large format entries.

Adam Broomfield, Sign & Display manager, spoke highly of the relationship the company enjoys with Virgin: ‘We’re lucky to have customers like Virgin who give us a lot of free reign over some of these campaigns. They let us have a lot of influence over the job, which allowed us to give them all our expertise and knowledge to get the best from their brief. 

‘The award is such a massive boost. Everyone gets on with his or her job without seeing the end result, but to get this recognition gives a massive boost; knowing you’re good at your job is great. Even if, as a manager, I go in every day and talk up my staff, praise them and tell them how good they are, it’s no comparison to winning an award like this.’

Managing director Aaron Lomansy added: ‘We’re constantly thinking, ”How can we improve the value of a job and what can the customer get out of it?” If we feel something could be better, we suggest the improvements to make. It’s important to have that two-way conversation.’

The company produces 99% of its clients’ needs in-house, with a wide range of capabilities such as wide format EFI Vutek GS2000 and Zund G3 cutting table, as well as B2 digital units from HP Indigo and litho printing from Heidelberg. The company also has a fine art department that deals with clients such as the Tate Modern.

Working with a large company such as Virgin Media is no novelty for the company, which also supplies all the printed collateral for Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club as well, and includes the Body Shop as one of its customers. 

After tasting victory at the first time of asking, has L&S Printing’s appetite for awards been sated? Not at all, according to Mr McInerney, so you can expect to see a lot more of them in the future.