PRINTER Goodman Baylis - based in Worcester - has launched a new venture in response to the demand for a specialist magazine print option.

Simon Hunt has joined the London Road company to launch a new division, GB Magazines. Already well established as one of the country's leading commercial sheet-fed printing companies, Goodman Baylis has developed to a point where it has all the equipment under one roof to cater for all of the needs of magazine publishers.

With the arrival of yet another press at Goodman Baylis - this time a 12-colour Heidelberg -- the company felt time was right to launch a dedicated service to magazine publishers. Simon Hunt has joined as managing director of GB Magazines, bringing years of experience of magazine production, both in heatset web-offset and sheet-fed manufacturing.

Simon started in the industry 26 years ago at grass roots level, working in a busy production office for a large web printer. Within a short period of time he had become production director for the same company, looking after all of the clients' technical requirements, from where he progressed to become sales director for the parent group of companies.

With his technical background, Simon has the added advantage of being able to guide clients through the production process.

Until recently Simon had been managing director of the sheet-fed division of the group, taking that business from £7m turnover to £13m in a seven year period, predominantly through magazine production. He believes the launch of GB Magazines is an important and exciting new move for the printer.

"GB Magazines has all of the equipment and knowledge to make life for magazine publishers easy and straight forward, giving them more valuable time to concentrate on their own businesses."

Goodman Baylis chairman Clive Parkes said: "We are one of the best equipped printers in the UK now and the arrival of the new 12 colour press and Simon's expertise, offer us a logical new opportunity that we have been successful in before to a degree, but which we can now concentrate on as a business in its own right."