The potential of a revolutionary new bookbinding process invented in Australia is limited only by the lateral thinking of marketers, and could net a trio of Australian book producers sizeable earnings, not to mention accolades for innovation.

Since ProPrint last visited this story, Melbourne book binder Cliff Royle has gone into business with his patented Roylebind technology, after attracting the interest of two industry icons.

Royle met Richard Rudzki when he was a client at Rudzki’s business, The Bindery. Rudzki, former managing director of The Bindery, has sold his share in that company, which was subsequently acquired by Rob Dunnett. Trevor Hone, a former Printing Industries president and the managing director of Avon Graphics, recently acquired Redback Finishing, and was invited to add his companies’ infrastructure muscle to the project. Royle has sold his business, Shannon Books, to focus on Roylebind.

Royle founded Roylebind Pty Ltd in 2005 as an incubator for new applications, and hopes to license a turnkey product offshore in the near future. Rudzki and Hone were invited into the company in 2006 and 2007 respectively.

Meanwhile, the Australian book binding market will be serviced from The Royle Bindery, a separate company, run by Hone and Royle, that opened its doors as a general bindery company on the Redback premises at Melbourne’s Mount Waverley several weeks ago. (Redback continues in its own right.)

Roylebind, a true Australian technology, is set to liberate hardcover books from case binding lines and to enable an avalanche of original new products for a number of markets, not only in publishing but in merchandising.

When ProPrint first visited Royle at Shannon Books in 2005, he was adding the finishing touches to Roylebind. A self-confessed technophile and tinkerer, he had invented the process at his Shannon Books Bayswater plant, refining it with the benefit of a Victorian Government COMET (Commercialising Emerging Technologies) grant. The result is a technology that applies the principles of perfect-binding to hardcover books.

Case-bound covers usually begin as three separate pieces of mill board that are glued to paper materials or cloths. The book block is then combined with the cases by gluing to endpapers. All in all, it’s a multi-faceted process capable of being performed on only four dedicated case binding lines in Australia, at The Bindery, Griffin Press, M&M Binders and Ligare.

But Roylebind takes a single light-gauge board — typically 360gsm — laminated on one side, and folds it into a cover block, just as rigid as a case cover, which attaches without endpapers direct to the book block by gluing on the spine and side — and here’s the point of departure — it’s able to be produced on a wide choice of modified perfect-binding lines.

This not only reduces the costs inherent in case binding by an estimated 50 per cent, it opens the book binding process to the specialties you might expect to find at a boutique package printer — windows, pop-outs, sleeves, hybrid products and personalisation to make a publishing professional’s heart pound.

And while case making lines generally cruise at speeds of around 2,500 covers per hour, Royle has revved his Roylebind technology to 20,000 per hour. As it can generate similar volumes to case binding lines, it is an attractive proposition for the book, gift and merchandising markets of Asia and the northern hemisphere.

But in Australia, where versatility beats the need for volume, Royle says, “You can potentially switch your binding line between hard covers on Monday, soft covers on Tuesday, DVD cases’ inside books on Wednesday, chocolate boxes’ inside books on Thursday.”

Roylebind works well with digitally printed sheets, and has already caught the eye of Australian companies running digital book printing divisions, with a view to integrating VDP.

Royle has perfected another process which is an extension of the current technology that is set to revolutionise the manufacture of children’s pop-up board books. Global manufacture and supply of these types of books are currently done in China as they are hand-made and suit that country’s low wage structure. A representative from India has already indicated his interest in a licensing agreement for that country.

Rudzki sees a big future for Roylebind at the fulfilment end of internet-ordered printing, such as covers for photo books, which require flexible production and hairpin turnarounds, and in the juvenile book market with its penchant for multimedia.

Adds Hone, “With a lot of book printing flowing to China, cost reduction for Australian product is critical, as is import substitution, but so is innovation and versatility, which will keep Australia’s printing and bindery lines busy.”

Comment below to have your say on this story.

If you have a news story or tip-off, get in touch at editorial@sprinter.com.au.  

Sign up to the Sprinter newsletter