Offset Printing
“Touching Moments – Strategic Vision 2013”
Tuesday 08. January 2013 - The new KBA calendar for 2013
“Touching Moments – Strategic Vision” is the title of the calendar for 2013, which the printing press manufacturer Koenig & Bauer (KBA) distributed to its customers and business partners worldwide before Christmas.
A challenging mix of both matt and high-gloss coatings were used to finish the 49 x 68cm (19 x 27in) portrait-format calendar. Photographer Manfred Zimmermann, who has received many prestigious prizes for his work, took the 13 creatively “finished” images used in the calendar at the KBA press main plant in Würzburg. Since 1971 Manfred Zimmermann has headed EUROMEDIAHOUSE, a communications and media centre in Hannover, which has a focus on photography and graphic design. 25 employees work here for prominent firms and German institutes.
Calendars with dates do not typically form a part of the Hannover-based photographer’s annual publications. The observer, thus detached from time constraints, gains an insight into the photographer’s deeply personal perceptions and interpretations. In today’s world dominated by “Outlook” and smart phones, KBA knowingly decided to only print the names of the months and not the days onto the pages of this extremely decorative wall calendar. The months are printed in seven languages in a reserved tone of grey, which serves to emphasise the radiance of the images and supports distribution worldwide.
The 13 striking images, which depending on their colours have been chosen for a particular season or month, were taken in the foundry, the manufacturing halls for gear wheels and large parts, the paintshop, assembly and other areas at the birthplace of the printing press in Franconia, Germany. The calendar’s foreword, which also bears the signature of KBA CEO Claus Bolza-Schünemann, states: “The images owe their vitality to fascinating technology and stunning materials. The abstract qualities of the photographs both inspire and move the observer with their luminescent colours and exceptional aesthetic appeal. Inventiveness and ingenuity have shaped the KBA group to this day. Reason enough to seek their origins. Where was the spark that ignited this extraordinary engineering accomplishment? Is it possible to bring incredible precision to life? How can objects become visible that can’t be seen? In Touching Moments photographer Manfred Zimmermann has interpreted anew the fascination of printing press technology.”
The KBA calendar 2013 has 14 pages and was produced on a large-format Rapida 145 and a medium-format Rapida 106 at the KBA customer showroom in Radebeul. In order to express the photographs’ visual imagery and striking colours properly, the calendars were printed with a frequency modulated screen and high-pigment inks. Through the expansion in colour space, the images in offset printing have a photographic-quality, which was rounded off by accurate UV spot coating.