GBM Scans The Ages for Future Design

Manchester, UK: Britain’s bounty of art and literature collections have been promised an infinite lease of life with GBM, Manchester’s premier full service graphics house, as it unveils revolutionary scanning technology that will preserve the legacies of previous centuries for the digital age and beyond.

GBM is successfully holding demonstrations of the Cruse large format digital scanner for leading curators and directors of notable museums, archives and galleries from across the UK. And, the final results are about to send huge ripples through the cultural and heritage industry.

Galleries Director at The Lowry, David Alston commented, "The sharpness of detail achieved is truly astonishing, it’s so sharp in fact that the scans could be used for creating archival records, documentation of the surface of a work of art, and maybe even matters of authentication."

Major developments in the quality and representation of scanned images and items have been harnessed in the large format scanner, to practically recreate exact copies of one-off and priceless works. Unprecedented levels of digital image quality are being witnessed that hold immensely positive archival conservation and commercial implications.

"The Cruse scanner at GBM produced images of specimens and illustrations of exceptionally high quality, with a level of detail and colour fidelity far better than any other process we have used" said Chris Tank of the Royal Horticultural Society.
Des Bradshaw, Technical Director for GBM explained: "Large format scanning will completely open up the possibility to conserve and digitally suspend for posterity, entire collections of artistic and historical value, and the resultant output images attain new standards in the quality of reproduction."

"This is technology that can perfectly capture images and pieces from the past for reproduction today and tomorrow, as well as allow lesser exhibited works to circulate more freely in the public domain, whether that be as paper copies or on the Internet. For designers too, it also makes a wealth of artistic resources more easily accessible."

Special features deal with the needs of this sector specifically. For instance, a sensitive load-bearing cradle has been developed for fragile first edition or hand-written books to protect spines. Furthermore, the Cruse scanner is designed unlike its more conventional forerunners, to eradicate the sometimes cumbersome lid that can bear down too heavily on delicate objects. There is also little limit to the scales and dimensions that can be worked with, from A0 portraits through to postage stamps.

Established in 1975, GBM is the favoured supplier to a host of UK brand names and companies. It has become a pioneer of graphic design and production through continuous investment in cutting edge technology and its recruitment of the industry’s best people. For further details please contact Anne Livingstone, Marketing Manager, at anna@gbm.co.uk.