Sappi, Actega Terra and Koenig & Bauer join forces for calendar project

Sappi, Actega Terra and Koenig & Bauer have partnered for their latest calendar project, which sees their respective products, substrate, coating and press, used to illustrate athletes who push themselves to their limits.

Under the theme ‘Move X-treme. Discover your possibilities’, the 2018 Actega calendar depicts athletes who push themselves to their limits

Under the theme ‘Move X-treme. Discover your possibilities’, the 2018 Actega calendar depicts athletes who push themselves to their limits, whether in speed skating, white water kayaking or motocross. Previous themes have included exotic landscapes, distant cities, underwater worlds, animals and textures.

For the 2018 edition, the team was once again on the lookout for images that express activity and inspire emotion. The images also needed to be suitable for high-quality finishes using varnish. As in previous years, the brilliant white cellulose carton Algro Design from Sappi was chosen as the substrate.

Various Actega Terra products were used in the calendar. For the month of June, two drip-off effects were implemented on the same image. By combining a UV-based coating with a conventional primer, matte/gloss contrasts as well as textured effects were created. A screen print varnish with sand effect, used in sheet-fed offset printing, created tangible structures reminiscent of a road surface. Visible and invisible relief effects were created with two screen print applications. Combining a matte MotionCoat primer and MotionCoat overprint varnish with vector-based graphics has created the impression of movement when viewed from different angles. The MotionCoat system was applied on two sheets of the calendar: the front page, showing a diamond pattern; and a beam effect for the month of November. Other effects used in the calendar include UV matte, UV LED gloss, pearlescent gold, Mirafoil UV silver before and after image printing, in-line embossing and a new friction varnish, which creates a foam-like feel.

The 82 x 58.5cm calendar was produced at Koenig & Bauer in Radebeul, using a 6-color Rapida 105 Pro sheet-fed offset press with twin coaters. This modern medium format printer is able to execute nearly all finishing processes, except screen printing, which was added off-line. For the calendar, many sheets required multiple processes in order to realize the desired varnish effects.

Sven Kretzschmar, process engineer and finishing expert at KBA-Sheetfed, said: ‘Producing the Actega calendar presents a great opportunity for all parties to jointly develop, test and implement innovative in-line finishing processes. Algro Design is a high-quality material that shows finishing effects off to their best advantage. The better the coating of the carton board, the more impressive the effect. And Algro Design ticks all those boxes.’

Timo Kondziela, marketing director at Actega Terra, commented: ‘Across all 12 months, “Move X-treme” takes the viewer into the world of performance athletes and extreme sports. We have once again purposely kept the calendar section quite small since the focus of the product is not its function as a calendar, but rather, its role as high-quality wall decoration and a presentation medium.’

The limited edition calendar and is not for sale. More than 5,000 copies have been produced and gifted to customers and business partners.