For a lot of us out there, it's hard to know what we want to do until we know what we don't want. For Eytan Jacobs, his career sea-change came after an actual change across a sea - or an ocean, you might more correctly say. Six years ago Jacobs immigrated to Australia from South Africa, having previously worked as a graphic designer and in IT.

 

Luckily for him, Jacobs came to Australia well-acquainted with what he didn't want. "I hated being stuck behind a computer,"he explains. "It didn't suit my temperament."Instead, his was the great dream - being your own boss. Jacobs wanted to start a business using his design experience, but wasn't quite sure how, or even what kind of company to create. Then, when a friend thinking of buying a printing business asked Jacobs for a bit of advice, he did his own research. Jacobs recommended to his friend the alternative of buying a franchised design and print centre with Worldwide Online Printing which he ended up taking himself.

 

Rather than risk starting a new brand in a sea of competitors, because there's certainly no shortage of small boutique design firms in Melbourne, Jacobs bought into the booming $80 billion Australian franchise industry. For two years now, Jacobs has been the owner of the Worldwide Online Printing design and print centre on St Kilda Road in Melbourne, along with his wife, who also works part-time in the centre. "It's great because it gives me the opportunity to be in business, but also to dabble in design. I just find business so exciting."

 

Worldwide's centralised manufacturing model, where offset and large digital print jobs are produced at the company's print factories, and not at the local design and print centres, meant Eytan could shape his centre with more of a design focus. "It has helped, having the knowledge of the design business. Design is a more important part of the revenue of our centre than any of the other Worldwide centres in Melbourne,"he says. "A lot of people look at the instant print side of things and think "they have designers there?', but that's just part of the education process."

 

Jacobs and his design team have managed to shake off most of the local 'business cards and forms' preconceptions about Worldwide to become a busy design business with benefits. "Basically we do similar jobs to a small design studio: lots of corporate identity stuff, logos, brochure work,"he explains. "We also do a lot of marketing stuff for local SMEs [small to medium enterprises]. I think the mix of work depends on the area you're in, and we're in a pretty solid corporate area. We're aiming to keep growing the design side of the business and expand into website design."

 

Having access to and knowledge of the print process helps his team offer an edge to clients, mainly because most design projects for any studio ultimately require a print element anyway. "The great thing about having both the design and print sides of things is that we can offer the whole design process, plus something a bit different in the print. We can offer that little bit extra for people, which you can't do just with the design."

 

"We recently produced a 60-page glossy brochure for a local financial company. It was a big project, really beautiful, and we did all the design. It wouldn't have been right without a glossy front cover, but that would have gone a little over budget. We managed to do it though, without that extra cost, because we could put it in with another print run at the factory, which is something a regular graphic design studio might not be able to do."

 

For more information about Worldwide Online Printing's products or franchising opportunities visit www.worldwide.com.au.

 

 

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