History

Darren Milne, principal of Hit Ink and a compositor by trade, has over fifteen years industry experience, in environments ranging from trade-houses, advertising agencies, project management, day to day strategic, general and technological management with large organisations, particularly rapid growth companies as well as managing multiple businesses of his own.

Hit Ink has been trading for more than five years. Primarily it was the principal partner and founder of Smart Solutions Group, which has successfully developed industry product and customised technology solutions for many leading Australian companies.

Darren Milne
- Show-Ads - Trade compositor. College of Printing and Graphic Arts.
- Thompson White/FCB - head of typography and Milestone page production.
- Show-Ads Omega - Manager Technology Support.
- PMP Communications - Project Manager
- Heidelberg Australia - National Manager Digital Systems
- SSG - Project Management, Systems and Business Consultancy, Sales & Marketing

Darren started his apprenticeship with All Graphic Industries in 1988 as a compositor/typesetter with responsibilities of controlling output of bromide and film for advertising agencies, in-house production and typesetting for agency and retail accounts. Darren was then given the opportunity to become site-manager at several different advertising agencies, being responsible for the co-ordination and productions of major retail accounts and mainstream advertising.

Because of his 'hands on' experience and understanding of the technical processes involved, he was invited to join the Show-Ads technical support department and moved to Shomega Head Office. His responsibilities entailed the technical support of the Milestone System at Show-Ads sites and remote agencies, servers, workflows, rips, digital proofing and databases. Moving into a Project Management position two years later and after the PMP acquisition of Shomega, Darren was promoted to Manager of the Technical Support Division for Graphic Arts, both nationally and Internationally, and responsible for the training and organisation of more than twenty staff.

In June 1997 Darren decided to embrace new challenges and move to Heidelberg Australia as a Sales Specialist for the Digital Systems Division having the opportunity to visit and work with many pre-press and printing companies. Less than a year later he was promoted to National Manager - Digital Systems, heavily focussing on client liaison and understanding of technical and production issues for product management, marketing, system and service sales, technical support and workflow proposals.

January 1999, Darren along with two other partners, started a new technology and development company Smart Solutions Group, providing specialised products and services for the graphic arts industry. As sales and marketing director, responsibilities included the invention, management and introduction of key products to the market and developing plans for continued development and enhancements of these products as well as consulting in the best way to integrate media solutions into clients businesses. Darren was also responsible for selecting and managing the preferred supplier relationships for the organization.

For more information, contact Darren Milne.