Mike Hilton Editor and Publisher

2010 marks our 25th Year of publishing for the printing and graphic arts industry in South Africa, Southern and sub-Saharan Africa. Mike Hilton launched Graphic Reproduction as a prepress specialist magazine in South Africa in 1985. This was renamed Graphic Repro & Print in 1990, to embrace its broader coverage and to better serve the entire industry from substrates to prepress, press and post-press. In September 2001, the Graphic Repro On-line Website was launched to complement the printed issues. The printed magazine ceased production at the end of 2005. Since 2003, Mike Hilton has developed Graphic Repro On-line into what has become an acknowledged and leading daily news and information resource for management in printing worldwide - by providing up-to-date daily news and information - as greater use of the Internet continues in our daily business lives in the industry.

During its early years, Graphic Repro On-line’s visitors, page views and hits more than doubled year-on-year until 2007, when they increased four-fold. Since then the number of visitor countries has continued to grow and reached a record 174 by 2008, reflecting a completely global reach, when the Website hosted more than 700,000 visitors, and recorded over 1.5-million page views and 4-million hits. In 2009, visitor numbers grew constantly and page views again increased to top more than 2 million. Since November 2009 these have again grown constantly and we are now on track to achieve well over 3 million Page Views in 2010. Whilst the African region remains strong, it was overtaken by North America and Europe in terms of visitors some years ago, and it continues to show solid growth from the Middle East, Asia, Oceania and the South America regions. Despite the economic challenges of the past year, all our Website sponsors remained loyal and we even achieved a modest increase, which was very encouraging.

In 2003, our weekly Graphic Repro.Net e-Newsletter was introduced to provide a totally unique service in Southern Africa, which has generated substantial international following since then with a strong global reach among its registered recipients. This free-of-charge weekly e-News update is made possible by the support of global leaders: Heidelberg, Goss, Kodak, Agfa Graphics and Ipex 2010, in order to provide busy print managers with a review of all news posted to the Website during the prior week, as well as highlighting additional features, profiles and case-study articles, technology guides, studies, reviews, new developments and more. Our dedicated newsrooms support FESPA, and the Drupa and Ipex international printing industry exhibitions staged every four years in Düsseldorf, Germany, or at the NEC near Birmingham, UK. During the latter half of 2008 the update became HTML-based and is sent from our Johannesburg servers.

Our Industry Links provide a host of useful links to industry organisations, tradeshows and exhibitions, selected publications, manufacturers and suppliers (global and local), industry training and educational bodies, used printing machinery organisations, and even provides some useful business travel and holiday links.

Our Archives contain all issues of Graphic Repro & Print magazine from January 1998 - the year the magazine moved to computer-to-plate and full digital production, until its closure at the end of 2005. These can all be accessed under year of issue (Search Option 2). The powerful search engine allows you to search the Website using words, phrases or names and titles. Unfortunately, this does not include our Headline News, but this can be accessed for up to two years from the Home Page and its continuation pages. Since the beginning of 2007 Headline News is also published weekly as News in Review, complete with an editorial overview - which is included in all searches - but not as individual news items, so you still have to scroll down the list for the appropriate week. This will continue throughout the coming year as it has proved popular with many of our Website visitors.

Today, the Graphic Repro On-line Website and supporting e-News continues its service as a virtual online magazine, which now publishes annually more than ten times the volume of news items and more than four times the number of feature articles than were ever possible in the printed issues of the magazine due to escalating costs. By the end of 2009, our Website has now published more than 16,000 news items since its inception – and this doesn’t include feature articles, or the specialist technical features in association with Digital Dots, and the Verdigris environmental initiative, introduced in 2008.

As always, we welcome constructive suggestions from our regular visitors and sponsors at all times, to enable us to provide a meaningful and worthwhile service to the industry worldwide. We encourage you to use the ‘Contact Us’ link on the Home Page at any time, and look forward to hearing from you with constructive suggestions or requests.

Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in the editorial content of Graphic Repro On-line and Graphic Repro & Print magazine are not necessarily those of the respective publishers, editors, or their agents. No liability or responsibility will be accepted for these, or any errors and omissions which may arise. The titles, names and logostyles of Graphic Repro & Print magazine (ISSN 1016-5096); Graphic Repro.Net e-Newsletter (ISSN 1814-2923); and Graphic Repro On-line Website (ISSN 1814-2915); are registered to, and remain the sole and exclusive property of Mike Hilton, P.O.Box 173, Peterburgskoe Shosse 13/1, 196605 Pushkin 5, St. Petersburg, Russia.