Longbottom Digital Paper is celebrating 25 years in business so we took the time to talk to founder, owner and managing director Colin Longbotto
Its been a long road to the top for Longbottom Digital Paper, now recognised as one of the country’s premier paper suppliers to the digital printing market. Reflecting on the journey managing director Colin Longbottom says, “Longbottom Digital Paper was started from my then home at the time in Milperra with only two staff, being myself and my wife. Bulk paper was kept at a bond store and loose specialty papers were kept undercover at the back of the house, and our major stock items were copy and bond paper.”Those days are a far cry from today’s sophisticated warehouse operation run by Longbottom, with the company stocking a large range of papers, particularly aimed at the digital and wide format market sectors. The company saw the direction the print industry was heading into and moved forward into digital stocks in 1995, with the take up of the new technology began to occur.
Commenting on the changes in the industry during his time Longbottom says, “Over the past 25 years the paper merchanting industry has seen the traditional merchants being taken over by the local mills, with change being a constant in a demanding marketplace.
“Many mergers and closures have taken place in a tight over-serviced market but the success of businesses such as ours has been due to our ability to be flexible and willingness to adapt, which has been one of the key hallmarks of this business.”
Longbottom cites the advent of the internet business as responsible for changing the direction of traditional print with adverse results. He says “Specialisation has been a key to the survival of today’s print and paper businesses.”
It was with the arrival of digital printing that Longbottom began to evolve his business, determined to become a leading player in what was a growing niche, at first small but which over time has grown steadily and will continue to do so. The arrival of digital printers has brought the development of papers to compliment the technology. Papers are produced for each digital printer types: inkjet, toner and dye sublimation technologies.
Longbottom says, “The advantages digital paper gives the printer in short run productivity far outweigh the seemingly dearer consumable cost of plain offset stock.
“This quality choice provides better definition, improved run-ability and less machine downtime which improves print quality and ensures delivery on time, as well as repeat business.”
According to Longbottom print estimators are still making the mistake of looking a paper as a major cost factor when quoting on a job, resulting in them searching for lower cost inferior grades, not taking into account the trouble free, quality finish that the specialised digital papers
will provide.
Support
Longbottom supports customers in all areas of the digital printer market, as its deep experience since the early days of digital printing has developed its knowledge of media compatibility. Colin Longbottom says, “We understand inkjet, toner and electro ink, and are always developing close ties with OEM’s and suppliers. Our strength is in our knowledge of which media suits a digital printer for the end users specific specification.”
The advantages to using Longbottom digital stock is the testing it has done to ensure performance to suit the task. The range covers a much broader grammage and quality choice particularly in the cut sheet digital printer products it represents.
Longbottom says, “This tactic of testing new products for evaluation keeps us in the lead, and many companies look to us for advice and products to suit their individual job demands.”
The company has seen significant change in recent years in digital printing with the development of faster, more capable printers with much greater capacity for volume. Heavier grammage up to 350gsm is the latest move within the industry and the move to eco-solvent inkjet and pigment ink with broader colour gamut for dynamic colour reproduction.
The company majors on the importance of branded papers, Longbottom says, “We have proven time and again at so many digital print sites in locations all over Australia that paper that is made and labeled digital will have better performance for all the reasons we stated earlier. Better paper performance means a better business in day to day print product operations.”
