Aadarsh Pvt. Ltd. in Bhopal publishes the Purple Turtle series of children’s books. These are supplied to about 25 countries, including the US, China, some European countries, the Middle East and South-East Asia.
Published in multiple languages such as Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Gujarati and English, Purple Turtle started as an imprint around which titles and stories were created. Currently Aadarsh is focussing on creating an animated video series for children.
Animated show focussed on children
“It is going to be a series of 52 episodes, each 7 minutes long. A co-production of companies in the US, Ireland, France and India, we are the lead producers. We hired the best and most experienced talent in the world to produce the scripts. The script writers are Emmy Award winners. The music is being lent by an Emmy Award winning music company from LA. The voice-over post production is done by Telegael based in Ireland. Cyber Group Studios in France are the co-producers and distributors. We do a lot of work in-house and outsource a part of animated content also,” says Manish Rajoria, director of Aadarsh Pvt. Ltd.
Other than this, the company publishes CBSE curriculum textbooks for classes 1 to 8. It has an author servicing program wherein it offers self-publishing services. In November 2018, Aadarsh won ‘The Most Innovative Printing Company’ award. A pioneer in producing talking books in the country, the company has registered its name in the Limca Book of Records and India Book of Records for producing these.
Talking books and smart books for children
“Talking books is a simple technology. We print these books with different techniques. A talking pen is used and when you point the pen at the book, it reads out the text as printed. We’re also producing some smart books. Since augmented reality is a costly technology to implement, unless you have huge volumes to supply, it doesn’t work out. Companies which are being funded or are large will be able to afford these kinds of projects. Though it is expensive, it is extremely interesting for children to learn.
“We have done a simpler version of augmented reality wherein we have an app called Purple Turtle Smart Books. We choose a book and we say scan. The moment we scan, the content printed in the text book starts playing on the mobile application. Similarly, we have some activities for children through this app which can enhance the learning experience. We are experts of pre-school content and these books are focussed on pre-school learning only,” shares Rajoria.
Automation in postpress
Using sheetfed and web offset presses along with a strong postpress and finishing setup, Aadarsh has hard bound machines, machines for section sewing, center stitching and perfect binding for book production. There is also a strong design and prepress section with CtPs.
Talking about the importance of automation in postpress, Rajoria says, “Gone are the days when one had 200 employees for postpress work. Now, unless one has strong automated postpress, one may not be able to do quality binding and the volumes cannot be achieved either. Printing is easy, but binding is difficult. If you have a strong postpress, it makes your work all the more easier and allows you to produce books more accurately with a good quality finish.”
The company has a Kolbus case-maker, casing-in machines, section-sewing machines, multi-clamp perfect binders and saddle stitching machines. Rajoria says that he thinks that a lot of automation has already come to India and hardly any company would fail to realize its importance. “If the print volume is 1 lakh books a day, one cannot do without the automated setup. It’s already there and the future is here. After we chose to automate our postpress, the quality improved, volumes increased and product appearance also improved. In pressroom, on the sheetfed offset side, we have Mitsubishi, Komori and Heidelberg. The last machine we purchased was a sheetfed – Komori Lithrone 429 – in 2017.”
FY 2018-19 was good for the company with solid growth. Rajoria says that digital will be interesting for his company looking at its wide client base and he is hoping to start this division soon.
