Southern Impact is energized by its one-stop-shop position in the Australian print market. From its new location in Mount Waverley, Victoria, the company offers integrated print services that keep expanding and improving, including digital and offset printing, large format, tailored software solutions, kitting and logistics services, and more.

Southern Impact's Sharna Beck attended the 2024 Dscoop Cebu Summit in the Philippines, where the company won a Print Pride Award for a recent book project shown here. Scroll down for a Q&A with Sharna about the project.

Can you walk us through the inspiration behind your winning Print Pride Award? What were the key elements that drove its design and execution?

This was just one of many jobs that landed on our desk to print needing fast turnaround and attention to detail with high-quality finishing. This brilliant book of art demonstrated various elements of art such as line, shape, color, space, texture, depth and form impressively. It really showcased the brilliance of the HP Indigo's amazing capabilities of printing fine line and detail. That’s why I chose to bring this book in as my creative piece for the Print Pride Awards competition.

Did you encounter any challenges, and how did you overcome them to deliver such a high-quality result?

We had a few challenges not yet come across, causing us to correct and start again. We then turned on real-time inspection, changing consumables, setting two-sheet proofing and proofing every 100–200 sheets. The issue corrected, and production ran smoothly. 

It really showcased the brilliance of the HP Indigo's amazing capabilities of printing fine line and detail.

In what ways did this project add value or solve a problem for your customer? Could you share any measurable outcomes or improvements they experienced?

The job needed a quick turnaround to be ready for a launch date. The HP Indigo 15K Digital Press allowed us to save time and supply high-quality prints perfect for an artist’s book of art. The customer was extremely happy with the finished book sent gratitude through an email.

What role did innovation or new technology play in bringing your project to life, and how did it help you achieve the desired effect?

Using real-time inspection, which is the automatic detection of print quality defects that can reprint while discarding defected sheets, helped us to monitor the quality. We ensured every book produced achieved the high quality necessary to showcase the art pieces inside the book itself. Using the larger sheet size on the HP Indigo 15K halved the time of printing for fast turnaround for the launch deadline.

Returning back to work with the news and sharing that back to the client through the job manager was a very proud moment in my career.

Looking back at this project, what do you feel was the most rewarding part of the process for you and your team?

Getting the finished book back and seeing our prints all come together perfectly, and knowing we deliver high quality even with fast-turnaround deadlines gives us a boost every time. But my most rewarding part of printing this job was winning the Print Pride Award for it. Returning back to work with the news and sharing that back to the client through the job manager was a very proud moment in my career.

Reflecting on your experience at the Cebu Summit, what key insights or moments stood out to you?

Cebu really was an amazing experience! Flying in and out on the days of the Dscoop networking activities didn’t give me a chance to relax and enjoy being overseas in the beautiful Cebu, but I had great start, meeting all new people I would spend the next two days learning and networking with. There is an awesome Dscoop vibe I have never experienced before. Everyone was very welcoming and insightful and bounced off each other.

The activities and talks were all fun and interesting, and I learned a lot about the creativity side with labels, which I would love to dive into more. And the Cebu Summit opened my eyes to Indigos being worldwide. It is an amazing networking event, and I highly recommend people getting involved and having the opportunity to bounce ideas off of other operators, business owners and partners in a relaxed way.