He describes himself as a dinosaur in his industry, a print shop proprietor who puts quality before profit and who eschews the company of fellow directors and shareholders. Manchester-born Tony Knight came to Australia as a three-and-a-half-year old with his 10-pound Pom parents and grasped his adopted country’s opportunities in both hands.
Knight is known today as much for his fiercely independent business principles as for his reputation as an avid professional photographer, a sideline for which he has been highly awarded.
Photography has been Knight’s passion for more than three decades, the past six years almost exclusively assigned to shooting the natural wilderness of Victoria’s Wilson’s Promontory. Following the 2005 bush fires, Parks Victoria commissioned Knight to photograph and document the regeneration and regrowth of this area. His vast collection of images are to be published in a high-end coffee table book, complementing his limited edition prints.
However, within the printing industry, he is known for going the extra mile via wholly owned Manark Printing, which is based in the outer Melbourne suburb of Noble Park.
“The only way we can survive is to have a point of difference,” says Knight, referring to his unconditional commitment to quality.
“A lot of people talk it but can’t walk it. The service parameters we go to are far beyond [where] most printing companies could afford to go,” adds Knight, who proceeds to tick off a list of examples that leave no doubt of the enormous lengths he will go to in order to satisfy customers, beyond their expectations. He talks with near reverence about the stocks, the coatings, the sourcing of special inks and esoteric paper styles for a fashion catalogue client in the production of which he explained “one has to have respect for the integrity of the fabrics being shown”.
“We know almost every stock there is, since we work for most of the paper companies,” he notes. Manark prints sample books for all the major merchants, and lists Edwards Dunlop, Spicers, Raleigh, Daltons and Doggett among his customers.
He adds: “Our understanding of colour is exceptional.” This characteristic is ingrained in Knight’s DNA, gleaned from his Masters in Photography and now transmitted to other members of the Manark staff, which today number around 20.
The love affair with colour goes back to the early beginnings of Knight’s business career. He did his apprenticeship in the 1970s at The Dandenong Advertiser, a newspaper that not only printed its own masthead for decades but also traded as a commercial printer. It provided the grounding that ultimately led to today’s Manark. Knight did a stint at a colour laboratory by that name, which he ultimately bought. He kept the name because he couldn’t afford a signwriter to change the name on the building.
Along the way, Knight subsidised his meagre income by parlaying an ancient Gestetner into part-time printing revenues. The old warhorse still rests in a dusty corner of Manark’s current premises.
The break came with a printing contract from a major industrial client. On the back of this, Knight raised the necessary funding to take the fledgling enterprise on its way to printing prominence. Today the company’s $3 million to $5 million of turnover encompasses a broad spectrum of printed products. The work Manark produces for its paper company clients frequently requires painstaking quality control and meticulously planning and hand-assembly. Knight maintains that many of his competitors would shy away from it.
Dinosaur qualities
He still handles a proportion of the firm’s sales himself but has a small team of three to maintain the throughput. Knight reflects on the difficulty of selecting the right people for the task because, as he says, “they have to appreciate quality… being competitive on price is a given but they have to be able to portray the point of difference in the Manark offering”.
Other ‘dinosaur’ characteristics include the fact the Manark MD is prepared to personally examine and judge a job prior to committing to the full run. He cites one example of a 50,000-run colour catalogue – up to 1,000 sheets might be put through to ensure the client is satisfied. It is not unusual for Knight to insist on a new set of plates and make the necessary adjustments before putting the job back on the machine.
Another point of difference out of the Manark stable is the firm’s emphasis on the use of the highest quality inks, despite higher costs. The firm’s many other quality and service standards lead Knight to conclude that there are few printers who will go to the same lengths for customers. One example of going the extra mile is doing just that: the company uses its own truck for interstate deliveries to ensure within-the-hour on-time deliveries, rather than use outside contractors.
In Knight’s view, the main difference between today’s printing industry and the one he fell in love with 30 years ago is the attitude of print buyers. “They were very particular; they knew what they wanted. Money was an issue but not a major concern. Today, quality has gone downhill. A lot of people have the equipment but they don’t have the attitude behind it.”
So the million-dollar question: how can he maintain these high-end quality and service standards without impairing his competiveness?
“I don’t have huge leases to cope with, massive overheads or brand new machines on the floor,” he says. The bulk of the firm’s output rolls off two six-colour Akiyama Bestech 628Cs and a Heidelberg GTO, which, between them, continue to produce work that regularly finds favour at the Victorian PICAs and National Print Awards. A small proportion of its output is now done digitally.
At the 2008 NPAs, Manark was awarded Gold Medals in the categories of ‘Innovation’ and ‘Specialty Printing’ while in the following year the company was awarded a high accolade for its Prime Minister’s Olympic Booklet, which won the ‘multi-piece productions and campaigns including direct mail’ category.
Knight is an environmentally conscious businessman. Machinery, paper stocks, inks and chemicals have all been overhauled while there is a major emphasis on waste reduction.
“We are always looking for new eco-friendly products and ways to save energy, with a line of equipment in place geared towards a greener future. Our belief is that quality printing can be produced in an eco-friendly manner by reducing waste and using alternative materials,” says Knight.
He points out that Manark’s presses are AC powered, saving up to 40% more power than conventional presses and in turn, emitting less greenhouse gas. They are capable of producing extremely fine screens and some of the heaviest solids of colour printable while all the company’s inks are vegetable/soy based except some UV coatings.
“Our water-based aqueous coatings are among the most environmentally friendly finishes available while paper choice is an important component of the mix.
“We encourage our customers to choose EMAS, TCF, ECF, PCF, FSC, recycled or neutral pH stocks, to mention but a few – generally any sheet that has gained environmental accreditation,” explains Knight.
Wildlife carers
Knight’s emphasis on the environment goes beyond his work life. After a full day at the office, Knight and his wife, Shelley, spend a great deal of time working as licensed wildlife rehabilitators. They are often called out at 2am to collect an injured animal, which they nurse back to health before releasing it back into its natural habitat.
Talking to Tony Knight restores a degree of confidence in the ever-diminishing craft aspect of today’s printing industry. Here is a man who is still prepared to discard a considerable proportion of a run to ensure the quality meets, if not exceeds, a customer’s expectations.
Here is a man who will increase internal costs to ensure that a delivery promised for 9am does not arrive at 10am. Here is a man who will not print a job with inferior inks to save a few dollars. In short, here is a man still prepared to uphold the highest standards of the printing craft that established it as one of the finest examples of the graphic arts.
Resumé
Born 1962, UK
Career history
1983-current: MD, Manark Printing;
1980-83: various roles, Manark Colour Laboratories;
1976-79: apprenticeship, The Dandenong Advertiser
Family Wife Shelley and teenage two sons
Hobbies
• Photography
• Wildlife Victoria registered animal carer
Tony Knight on…
Waste reduction
“We all need to do our bit, whether it’s little things like having timer switches on lights, utilising delivery runs to eliminate doubling up, making sure we use recycled stocks wherever possible or separating clean waste from inked waste.”
Proofing
“Customers should have the widest choice of proofing systems. We provide five systems, from the pre-press standard inkjet proofing, Epson proofing, Dylux proofing, (the only double-sided proofing system, ideal for making mock ups and a cost effective solution for confirmation of authors’ corrections), Spectrum proofing – the world’s only true dot-for-dot proofing system – and the highly accurate XP4 proofing system, which can proof on to virtually any material in 4CP, PPMS, metallics and hexachrome.”
His photography
“Although awards are flattering, I’m not trying to change the world with my images, just reminding people of the beauty that still exists.”
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