One of Auckland’s print finishing businesses Fastfold Print Finishing has changed hands and the previous owners, Daniel and Nadine Lanigan have started up a specialist bookbinding business on the North Shore. The couple started Fastfold, now based in Morningside, 15 years ago and the specialist book binding division some time later. In that time they increased their staff from the initial two people to 12 today.
Their new business, Birkenhead-based Design Bind Ltd, will specialise only in perfect binding, wire-o binding and the hand restoration of older or damaged books.
Originally a bookbinding tradesman, Daniel says his first love is bookbinding, and with a young family and home on Auckland’s North Shore, he has opted to move back into that field as a specialist with a smaller company closer to home.
Design Bind Ltd has six staff and will continue the work it was doing as a division of Fastfold.
“We’ve basically split the company and sold our print finishing operation, keeping the specialist work.”
The new company is servicing existing clients, including many printers, copy shops, libraries, and walk-in street trade and Daniel and Nadine plan to design and produce their own line of stationery.
Meanwhile the new owners of Fastfold are Doug McRae and Desiree Nattrass.
Both have been involved in the printing industry for approximately 20 years with Nattrass having started on the factory floor setting up and running print finishing equipment and specialising in folders.
She completed her print finishing apprenticeship at UBD Wises and has worked at a variety of finishing companies including Soar Print where she ran the first computerised Stahl folder in New Zealand. She’s also worked at First In Print and PMP.
More recently she’s been involved in the customer services and costing and estimating side of the industry.
Doug McRae started his finishing career learning the ropes in a family firm and has also worked in some of Auckland’s largest printing and print finishing companies.
