October 2010
Yes! Yes!
Blue jeans, bronze award
We’re delighted to announce that we’ve won a bronze award in the Fashion, Personal Products and Accessories category at this year’s POPAI Awards, which recognise excellence in point-of-purchase display. The awards were announced in London at the Sheraton Park Lane, London, on 21 October 2010.
We received the award for our work on New Look’s ‘Yes! Yes!’ jeans campaign. New Look asked us to produce a modular system which could show 3 to 5 jeans ranges in their windows, with the design following through to in-store POS.
Definitely a campaign with legs, then.
July 2010
Kolorcraft accredited with the ‘two-tick’ disability symbol
Kolorcraft is delighted to have been accredited with the ‘two-tick’ disability symbol, recognising that we are positive about employing disabled people and positive about recognising their abilities. Our accreditation was rapid and straightforward, thanks to all the work we had already put in over the years.
The symbol is awarded by Jobcentre Plus to employers who have made commitments to employ, keep and develop the abilities of disabled staff. Our commitments under the scheme are to:
- Interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for a job vacancy and to consider them on their abilities.
- Discuss with disabled employees what we and they can do to make sure disabled employees can develop and use their abilities.
- Make every effort, when employees become disabled, to make sure they stay in employment.
- Take action to ensure that all employees develop the appropriate level of disability awareness needed to make these commitments work.
- Review our commitments each year and assess what has been achieved, plan ways to improve on them and let employees and Jobcentre Plus know about progress and future plans.
June 2010
Kolorcraft Group impressed by calibre of winning work in student design competition
Now in its fifth year, the annual design competition held by Kolorcraft Group, one of the UK’s biggest retail point-of-sale businesses, has found a winner among the Fashion Communication & Promotion students at Huddersfield University.
Each year, Kolorcraft takes the course’s first-year undergraduates on a tour of their premises, and then presents them with a brief to which they respond in order to develop their skills, push their thinking and possibly win the prize of an iPod. In 2010, around 30 students were asked to come up with a communications campaign for one of three retail brands.
Claire Allen, the course leader at Huddersfield, explained why the students are keen to get involved: “The tour of Kolorcraft really opens their eyes because it’s the first time the new students get a chance to see the promotional design process all the way through—right from initial concepts to production. They’re always fascinated by this, so the competition is a great way to channel their enthusiasm and imagination.”
This year, it was mature student Nicola Dunn who won the competition, with the outdoor digital campaign she designed for her ‘client’ New Look. The campaign tells the shopper an unfolding story about New Look, whereby the message becomes increasingly focused and detailed the closer the shopper draws to the medium.
The judging panel, comprising two academic staff from the university and three senior members of Kolorcraft, was particularly impressed by Nicola’s entry. According to Phil Findley, Kolorcraft’s managing director: “It was good to see how much research had gone into Nicola’s submission. And the quality of the work presented was very high—I would have no qualms about putting it in front of a client. At Kolorcraft we like to be really proactive about engaging with students and boosting links between academia and industry—simply because it’s to everyone’s advantage.”
Huddersfield’s Fashion Communication & Promotion students spend three years at the university (or four years if they do an industrial placement) and, upon graduation, can expect to work in fashion PR; in marketing at either an agency or in-house with a fashion brand; designing; or buying.
March 2010
BS OHSAS 18001 Occupational Health and Safety Standard
We’ve been investing in the health, safety and welfare of our employees for many years, so getting accreditation to this standard was a natural and welcome progression for us. BS OHSAS 1800 helps us to verify our compliance with an ever-increasing range of safety regulations, for the protection of our staff, non-employees working on our site, and people who live and work around us.
Lee Rossiter, health & safety manager at Kolorcraft, outlined the work required of Kolorcraft in order to attain the standard:
- Implementing a risk-assessment programme across the whole company.
- Staff training on health & safety issues, the operation of machinery, risk assessment, manual handling and fire control.
- Establishing the health & safety committee.
- Implementing a health & safety policy and safe systems of work.
- Documenting a full health & safety manual.
- Reviewing our compliance with health & safety legislation.
January 2009
Ensuring the responsible sourcing of paper-based materials
At Kolorcraft, because of what we do, we use significant quantities of paper-based materials. We believe it is vital to sources these materials responsibly to ensure long-term timber supplies while protecting the environment and the lives of forest-dependent people.
To this end, Kolorcraft has now attained Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Endorsement of Forestry Certification (PEFC) chain-of-custody standards. These certifications enable our clients to work confidently with us, knowing that they are not contributing to global forest destruction.
The two schemes verify that any timber sold or purchased has come from woodland that has been well managed, purchased and harvested. The forest source of the timber has a certificate number which is passed to the initial purchaser of the timber. From there on, each saw-miller, processor or importer who handles the timber must demonstrate, via independent auditing, that they, too, comply with the schemes’ standards.
This means that Kolorcraft cannot, even unwittingly, source paper or paper products from illegally harvested timber; wood harvested in violation of traditional and civil rights; wood harvested from areas of high conservation value; forests being converted to bare land; or wood from genetically modified trees
BS EN ISO14001 Environmental Management Standard
After a year of intensive preparation, we’ve been awarded an important accreditation in the form of BS EN ISO14001. This recognises our long-standing belief that concern for the environment should be an integral and fundamental part of the business. According to Phil Findley, our managing director: “Getting the accreditation does carry a price tag, but it was very much worth doing. It offers immeasurable benefits over the long term to the environment, Kolorcraft, and our customers.
Lee Rossiter, environmental manager at Kolorcraft, outlined the work required to attain the standard:
- Assessing our environmental impacts and creating a team to achieve key objectives (such as reducing packaging by 5%).
- Introducing programmes to reduce energy, waste and raw-material consumption and to conserve utilities.
- Waste recycling and segregation to reduce monthly landfill waste.
- Training staff on designing for the environment, material selection, waste segregation, spill control, fire control, environmental incident reporting and incident control, etc.
- Creating an EMS manual.
We already hold accreditations from the Forest Stewardship Council, the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification and the POPAI Green Project.
Kolorcraft Group, based in Ossett, West Yorkshire, was established in 1979 and is now one of the UK’s largest retail point-of-sale producers, with 250 staff and a turnover of more than £20m.
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