Printing Industry Commentary & Analysis

The Bürkle and EFI Partnership: A LIGNA 2019 Interview

During LIGNA 2019, Keypoint Intelligence – InfoTrends caught up with José Luis Ramón Moreno of EFI and Olaf Rohrbeck of Bürkle/LIGNA to learn more about the recently announced partnership between EFI and Robert Bürkle GmbH. This article provides a transcription of the interview.

Avery Dennison Launches New Car Wrap Visualizer

To help vehicle wrap installers better help customers with color change vehicle wraps, Avery Dennison has launched an online Car Wrap Visualizer that shows how a particular vinyl film color looks on a representative sample of vehicle types. We spoke with Avery Dennison’s Abby Monnot, who helped develop the tool.

Survey: Multichannel Marketing from a Small Business Perspective

How are small businesses implementing multichannel marketing? What role does direct mail play in those strategies? Taradel decided to find out. This article takes a look at some key findings and takeaways.

Pricing Software Tools That Enable Print Programs

Your print sales team has to evolve to understand and be able to sell the value of the software that enables print demand from business processes. Every printer should have a direct revenue line for their software.

EskoWorld: Packaging Connected

Esko held its 28th EskoWorld in Nashville with an audience of over 550 attendees. Since its inception, this has been a go-to event for those in packaging production and signage, although the audience is now growing with about 25% of which were brand owners. This plays nicely into the theme “Packaging Connected.”

World Gathers in Barcelona for ITMA 2019

ITMA 2019 Textile and Garment Technology Exhibition, the world’s largest trade fair for the textiles industry, is taking place in Barcelona from June 20 to 26. For our printing industry readers, this is like the drupa of textiles. Here are some of the highlights from the show, with a focus on how companies are addressing the growing need for an ecosystem approach to digital textile printing.

Advertising Agency Employees—2010–2016

In 2016, there were 194,792 employees in establishments in NAICS 54181 (Advertising Agencies). Employment in this category has grown +31% from 2010 to 2016.

Around the Web: More Meeker! Press Conference Cat-astrophe. 3D Fashion. A Tale of a Tail. Marking Computer History. Redesigned Mailboxes. Celebrating Tristram Shandy. Bakery Printing Error. Li-Fi.

Mary Meeker Slide Roulette. 3D Fashion Editor. An app-controlled animatronic tail. A N.H. highway historical marker commemorates the creation of BASIC. Note to press briefers: turn off the kitten filter. The USPS combats postal box fishing. A look at Laurence Sterne’s classic “Tristram Shandy.” Who wouldn’t want a Marie Curie birthday cake? Internet-transmitting lights. Crocheted body parts. All that and more in WhatTheyThink’s weekly miscellany.

The Commodity Conversation: Who Are We Kidding?

The buying criteria within the printing industry are no different than any other—they come down to quality, service, and price. This article provides a brief overview of these three key buying criteria and explores how print service providers can shift away from a commodity conversation while still respecting customers’ inherent preferences.

ImageMark Adds Promotional Products to Product Offerings

Long an industry trendsetter, North Carolina-based ImageMark recently announced the addition of promotional products to its portfolio of offerings in order to increase its value to customers as a one-stop shop for everything marketing. Senior Editor Cary Sherburne spoke with CEO Walter Payne to find out what drove this decision.

Study: Direct Mail Shoppers Are More Engaged, Spend More

Research from Pebble Post/Murphy Research finds that direct mail shoppers are highly engaged and spend, research, and evangelize more than non-direct mail shoppers. What’s behind this behavior? A look at the data from Pebble Post, as well as others.

Hidden Labor Costs of Bad Data

The level of trust you have in the data in your Print MIS impacts all aspects of your business. When printers get their Print MIS to be “trustworthy,” they can move a whole lot faster, with less labor costs, and be more responsive to the never-ending request for more data from all stakeholders in your business.

Enabling Sales with the Right Story: Are Using the Right Print Samples?

In part 4 of Pat McGrew's series on selling in today’s print environment, she talks about how to make sure the print samples your sales team uses reflect the products you specifically want to sell.

Do Customers Know What “Wide Format” Printing Is?

What’s in a name? Does the term “wide format” mean anything to today’s print buyers? Avoiding industry jargon in sales and marketing efforts—and especially in one’s online presence—can help attract potential customers who may not be hip to our jive.

SmithersPira Hosts Digital Print Week 2019 in Orlando

Once again, market research firm SmithersPira hosted Digital Print Week, with two conferences back to back: Digital Print for Packaging U.S. and Digital Textile Printing U.S. WhatTheyThink Senior Editor Cary Sherburne attended both sessions. The WhatTheyThink team also captured some great video content during the conferences, which will be run on the site over the next few weeks.

April Printing Shipments—A New Season?

Printing shipments for April were up from March, happily disrupting what has become the usual seasonal pattern. Even better, April 2019 shipments came in above April 2018 shipments.

Around the Web: Two Words: Mary Meeker! Kirie Eleison. Passenger Drones. Shame-Based Ecology. Kids on Film. LED Earbuds. Ice Ice Hawking.

Data nerds rejoice: Mary Meeker’s 2019 Internet Trends Report is out. The Japanese art of kirie. Robotaxies to take flight. Barnes & Noble sold to a hedge fund. Fujifilm resumes making black-and-white film. Light up your brain, ostensibly. “The queen of eating shellfish online.” A Stephen Hawking-esque voice synthesizer performs “Ice Ice Baby.” All that and more in WhatTheyThink’s weekly miscellany.

Pricing the New Stuff

New technologies, new equipment, and new applications can play havoc with traditional pricing. In the third installment of his series on pricing, Robert Lindgren looks at how to price new capabilities such as digital printing and VDP, wide-format printing on unique substrates, and more.

Tracking Shifts in the Customer Communications Market

As part of its coverage of the customer communications market, Keypoint Intelligence – InfoTrends conducts annual research of enterprises and consumers. This article provides a brief overview of recent survey findings and also highlights the data points that will be uncovered in upcoming research.

Putting Numbers to Direct Mail’s Ability to Drive Purchases

In concert with Pebble Post, Murphy Research released a study that puts data to what we intuitively know but can’t always document: that direct mail drives purchase consideration and plays a central role in the path to purchase. These are good numbers to have!

Idealliance PPC: Global Collaboration—Where Standards are Born

Idealliance’s Ron Ellis and Tim Baechle provide an update on the Print Properties and Colorimetric Council (PPC), a global think tank in which the top color scientists, consultants, OEMs, brands, service providers, creatives, educators, and global innovators that develops standards, specifications, datasets, profiles, targets, research, and the globally leading practices in order to propel the industry forward.

EXCLUSIVE: Adobe, Datacolor, and CSI Team to Enhance Adobe Textile Designer

Adobe, Datacolor, and Color Solutions International (CSI), have teamed up to continue the enhancement of Adobe Textile Designer for Photoshop by making it easier for designers to seamlessly capture inspiration colors, sending them directly into Photoshop. Adobe’s Mike Scrutton explains the details.

Ricoh Interact 2019—A Very Engaging Experience

David Zwang reports from Interact 2019, Ricoh’s annual customer event comprising nearly 60 sessions which covered a wide range of topics, both high-level and highly detailed. It also provided an opportunity to meet some of the new Ricoh leadership team.

Self-Improvement Is Business Improvement

What does it take to be successful as the leader of a business? It’s not enough just to be qualified to do the job. Are you behaviorally suited? Do you have the strong key traits that distinguish high-performing CEOs from everyone else? Determining how you stack up against the “best and the brightest” can identify areas in which improving yourself can help improve your business. Wayne Lynn of Lynn Consulting explains how.

FESPA 2019: Key Takeaways

FESPA 2019 in Munich was, by all accounts, its most successful show yet. The WhatTheyThink team walked all six halls, attended lots of press events, and did video interviews with a number of exhibitors that will be running over the next few weeks. Here are our key takeaways from the show.

Sports Illustrated Print Edition Heads to Hospice—May 2019 M&A Activity

Meredith sells off Sports Illustrated branding rights, Welch Packaging stays focused, and more…

See the Industry Under One Roof

As it brings the printing industry together, PRINTING United will reveal adjacent opportunities.

Around the Web: Fashion Footprints. Dental Data. Born-Again Bookstores. Delicious Design. Correlation Caution. Dash Disturbance. Forgery Fallout. Rocket Reading.

Quantifying fashion’s environmental footprint. Transforming the bookstore into a “cultural department store.” A profile of revolutionary designer Cipe Peneles. Buy your own Follows and Likes. Caution: Correlation vs. Causation. Using hyphens in academic paper titles adversely affects citations stats. Nuclear tests can help spot art forgeries. An AR-enabled book about the history of rocket launches. All that and more in WhatTheyThink’s weekly miscellany.

Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services Employees—2010–2016

In 2016, there were 472,163 employees in establishments in NAICS 5418 (Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services). Employment in this category has grown +15% from 2010 to 2016.

Learnings from the Road: May Trade Events in Perspective

May 2019 saw a variety of important trade events on a global scale, including the National Postal Forum, the Fiserv Forum, Xeikon Café, and FESPA. This article provides a brief synopsis of the major trade events that occurred during the past month.

In-Plant "Frontrunners" Race to IPMA's Annual Conference

More than 200 in-plant “Frontrunners” raced to Louisville, Ky., this week for the In-Plant Printing & Mailing Association’s (IPMA) Annual Conference, four days of sessions, networking events, and technology exhibits.

Choose to Measure Time Spent in Your Print Business

Everyday, most of us choose the most important thing to work on. The employees in the carpeted area of your print business are making these decisions everyday. Do you know what they are prioritizing? Do you know how they are spending their time? You should measure time just like you measure revenues, profits, and costs.

Looking to Combine Print with Social? Check Out These Data

This article looks at the data from Merkle’s “Digital Marketing Report” (Q1 2019). Specifically, it looks at growth (or lack thereof) in ad spending and impressions for the top social media channels.

Smithers Pira Research Identifies Major Growth Technologies for Spunlace Nonwovens to 2024

Spunlace nonwovens have a compelling commercial future in expanding end-uses—including adult and infant wipes, home care, and industrial applications—according to the latest research from Smithers Pira.

Enabling Sales with the Right Story: How to use Print Samples in the Sales Process

In part 3 of Pat McGrew series on selling in today’s print environment, she talks about how to use print samples in the sales process.

FESPA Special Features: The Stars of the Show

FESPA Munich was an amazing show. If you didn’t attend this year, you should definitely consider attending next year in March in Madrid. There is something for everyone, regardless of which segment of the industry in which you play. Of particular note are the special features FESPA has organized to add to its educational value. Senior Editor Cary Sherburne reviews them here.

The Changing Face of Print Business Opportunities

In our annual Print Business Outlook Survey, we found that the top opportunities for print businesses included some newer, proactive items, with some of the old chestnuts falling off the tree. As we saw with recent Business Challenges, could this reflect a “changing of the guard” of print business management?

Around the Web: Books...In a Library?! Hidden Secrets of the NYPL. The World’s First Poster Museum. Optical Illusion. A Digital Dress? What the ? A Puckish Idea. Three Little Words.

The clamor to keep print books in academic libraries. 10 reasons to get a New York Public Library card. NYC opens first poster museum. Fry your brain with this new optical illusion. $9500 for a dress that doesn’t actually exist. Meredith sells Sports Illustrated...but not the magazine. The mysterious origin of the dollar sign. Let us proclaim the mystery of tape. Hockey pucks for the blind. For sale: one Wienermobile. All that and more in WhatTheyThink’s weekly miscellany.

Memjet for Packaging: DuraLink Entries Are Ramping Up

Memjet’s second-generation technology, DuraLink, achieved its first commercial placements from a few OEMs, and is now expanding into industrial applications. This article provides an overview of DuraLink technology, explores how it compares to VersaPass, and considers how Memjet’s offering may compare to more established industrial jetting technologies.

Enabling Sales with the Right Story: Creating Compelling Stories with Print Samples

In part 2 of Pat McGrew's series on selling in today’s print environment, she talks about how print samples are at their most effective when there are compelling stories associated with them.

Study: “Nudge” Customers into Going Green

Printers have become accustomed to incentivizing customers to use environmentally friendly consumables by minimizing the cost difference from non-green versions. But a new research study shows that this approach may be counter-productive. Would charging more for a “green marketing package” actually increase your customers’ green purchasing intent? This study suggests that the answer is yes.

How Timing Impacts Strategic Print Software Decisions

Being strategic about print software is nearly impossible when you are in a crisis. Too many print software decisions are made under duress. When you have the discipline to plan before the crisis, you are being strategic.

Edelmann Demonstrates Its S10 as Landa Moves Towards Commercialization

Keypoint Intelligence – Infotrends’ Ralf Schlozer reports from last week’s open house at Germany’s Edelmann Group, where the company was demonstrating its Landa S10 for folding carton production. Landa aims to step up its press installations through the rest of 2019.

Rebirth of Flexo: Part 2...Can This Type of Effort Translate to Other Analog Printing Technologies?

In Part 2 of “Rebirth of Flexo,” David Zwang looks at an example of a flexo solution and its components that provides a significant deterrent to the onslaught of production inkjet in packaging production.

Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services Establishments—2016

in 2016, there were 37,875 establishments in NAICS 5418 (Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services). Two-thirds of these establishments (65%) have under four employees, 79% have under 10 employees, and 88% have under 20 employees. The largest agencies (100 or more employees) only account for 2% of all establishments.

Around the Web: Recycling Garments. “Knitting is Coding.” Stubborn Signage. Fanatics and Fast Fashion. Graphic Design for President! QR Codes to Aid Memory. Big Monet.

Sex weasels of classical portraiture. Times Square billboard under fire. Fanatics becomes the Amazon of sports apparel. The West Wing Weekly podcast looks at campaign design and typography. Using QR codes to assist dementia patients. Is there money in art? The tragedy of AirPods. All that and more in WhatTheyThink’s weekly miscellany.

Five Steps to Creating a Process Control Culture

Timothy Baechle of Idealliance identifies five steps that will help establish a process control culture in your print business. Creating an environment based on equipment measurement and monitoring, combined with continued investment in employee education, will lead to more satisfied and productive employees, better and more consistently performing equipment, and, ultimately, more satisfied customers.

How Data Analytics Bring Value to a World of Information

In a recent survey, Keypoint Intelligence – InfoTrends examined the behaviors of different types of print service providers (PSPs). We determined that the most successful PSPs possess unique qualities that separate them from their competitors. One such quality that enables this group to be successful is their use of data analytics to process and leverage the marketing information they obtain for self-promotion.

Print MIS Product Spotlight: Avanti’s Slingshot

Jennifer Matt reviews Slingshot by Avanti, and feels that its integrated warehouse management, multiple approaches to scheduling, and approach to implementation are its core strengths.

Do You Have Your “Do Good” On?

Doing good has become good business practice. We not only see it in action, but the research bears it out, too. Fortunately, we are seeing printers taking up the mantle and investing in various areas of social responsibility, cementing customer relationships and (hopefully) creating positive peer pressure to do the same.

Rebirth of Flexo: Technology Shifts…Are We Asking the Right Questions?

During new printing technology introductions there has usually been displacement and realignment of the existing print technology roles. During those transformational times, there are many old and new options. Packaging production is now going through one of these periods, raising the question: what type of print technology is best? In packaging production, this decision is getting harder, as a result of the rebirth of flexo printing.

Lifelong Learners Come to Feast at the Xeikon Café

Kevin Karstedt reports from last week’s Xeikon Café, two days of forward-thinking presentations, nearly 40 solutions partners, and some new “killer apps” that are pushing far more than envelopes in today’s digital printing environment.

Design Pool Aims to Make Fabric Design Selection Easier for Interior Designers

In the world of interior design, finding the exact fabric needed for a commercial or residential interior design project can be difficult. But why not have the exact fabrics you need, designed and printed on demand in the exact quantity you need? That’s the concept behind Design Pool.

Beyond PRINT: With Tarsus Alliance, APTech Begins a New Chapter for Itself and for the Industry

Last week, the Association for PRINT Technologies (APTech) announced that it has joined forces with Tarsus Group, the owner and organizer of the Labelexpo and Brand Print Global trade shows, to launch a new show called Brand Print Americas. We spoke with APTech president Thayer Long about what the new alliance means for the future of APTech—and for the industry.

March Printing Shipments: A Day at the Races

The value of printing shipments for March were up from February. However, at $6.66 billion, March 2019 shipments came in below March 2018’s $6.74 billion. That’s not a huge disappointment, but we were hoping for a better month.

Around the Web: Revised Receipts. Lost Libraries. Elusive Elements. Killer Conferences. Otic Apps. Flora Fluorescence.

Adding visual information to register receipts. 75 years of ISA. A recently discovered 500-year-old library catalog of lost books. Our dwindling helium supply. Does conference room air negatively affect decision-making? Plant-based lighting. All that and more in WhatTheyThink’s weekly miscellany.

The Power of the Hit Ratio

In the second installment in his series on pricing, Robert Lindgren looks at the “hit ratio”—the percentage of quotes that turn into actual orders. Differentiating customers based on their respective hit ratios, and adjusting pricing accordingly, can lead to a substantial increase in the bottom line.

FESPA 2019: Beer, Brats, and Dots

FESPA 2019 attracted attendees on a global scale under the theme of an “Explosion of Possibilities.” In partnership with Keypoint Intelligence – InfoTrends, the event’s organizers collected feedback from the 2018 Print Census research to determine key areas of focus for the 2019 event.

Yesterday’s Workflow Tools: Spreadsheets, Email, and PDFs

The toolset for solving business workflow challenges has completely changed in the last decade. If the only tool(s) you’re deploying are email, spreadsheets, and/or PDFs, you are using yesterday’s tools to solve today’s challenges.

Is In-App Use the Future of QR Codes?

Is in-app use the future of QR Codes? As in, not a QR Code app, but someone else’s app? Maybe this explains research that shows that QR Code use is increasing.

A RIP Designed with Label and Packaging Production in Mind: Harlequin RIP v12.1

We are seeing significant advancements in label and packaging production in both digital and analog production. However, one thing in common is rapid growth. Global Graphics released the Harlequin RIP v12 about a year ago with some of the new PDF 2.0 features. This new Harlequin RIP/Renderer v12.1 has added many additional features designed for print and further targeted at label and packaging production. David Zwang takes an in-depth look at this new release.

Do Your Employees Work Well as a Team?

The printing industry is in the middle of a talent crisis. It’s getting harder and harder to find employees, let alone ones who work well on a team. In this article, Wayne Lynn looks at the three characteristics of good team players, and how print business leaders can help identify and improve these characteristics in their own employees.

Dresslife Works to Deliver a Magical Ecommerce Experience for Fashion

As consumers look to ecommerce for more and more of their purchasing, the fashion industry has a growing issue with costly returns—largely because items don’t fit as expected. Dresslife works with fashion brands and retailers, enabling them to offer a better customer experience and has launched a mobile app. We spoke with Dresslife’s marketing manager, Yvonne Georgi, to learn more.

Printing’s Labor's Lost?

Overall printing employment dropped -0.7% from March to April 2019 and on a year-over-year basis is down -2.9%. Production employment dropped a tad from March to April, and is down -4.5% from April 2018. Non-production employment was up +0.6% from April 2018 to April 2019.

Around the Web: Textile Reshoring. $50 Typo. Ad Nauseam. Beyond RGB? Salvador Dalí Meets the Marx Brothers. The World’s Smallest Post Service. Parrot-Based Marketing. Also: Hatebeak!

OnPoint named Alabama Manufacturer of the Year. New dress shirts. The origin of the word “dude.” A dark vision of the future of advertising. Will we ever be able to see more colors? The long lost Marx Brothers movie written by Salvador Dalí. Selling whisky with parrots. All that and more in WhatTheyThink’s weekly miscellany.

Direct-to-Garment Printing Landscape Grows Across Commercial and Industrial Sectors

Digital has become a viable method for printing a variety of fabric applications, and the technology is now extending its reach into the direct-to-garment (DTG) market. This article offers a brief discussion about the growth in DTG printing and discusses some key trends for the commercial and industrial printing sectors.

A Conversation About Web-to-Print With Slava Apel, Founder of Amazing Print

If today’s online storefronts and web-to-print workflows don’t look anything like they used to, there’s a reason. The software has advanced leaps and bounds from where it was even a few years ago. This interview with founder and CEO of Amazing Print Tech Slava Apel reflects how the technology is changing...and how it is changing those who use it.

Adobe Continues Enhancement of Photoshop Textile Design Capabilities

Six months ago, we reported on Adobe’s Project Paras, a public beta of an addition to Photoshop CC that made it easier for textile and apparel designers to do their work. We checked in with Mike Scrutton, Director of Print Technology and Strategy for Adobe, to get an update.

How Clean Is Your Print Business Data?

All print business owners want more data about their businesses so they can make better decisions. It isn’t about reporting packages or business intelligence tools—it’s really about how your business generates data on a daily basis.

The De-Evolution of Cenveo—April 2019 M&A Activity

Cenveo spins out more assets, Knepper acquires, MSP converges, and more…

Fujifilm Launches Next-Generation J Press 750S

Last week, Fujifilm held a user event at its experience center outside Chicago to launch the J Press 750S, the company’s third-generation cut-sheet production inkjet press. The event included presentations from Fujifilm executives, a user panel, and a tour of the center featuring Fujifilm’s vast portfolio of inkjet technologies, both small- and wide-format.

Kodak Flexographic Packaging Reborn—Introducing Miraclon

In this age of digital print transformation, what is so exciting about the rebirth of a plate manufacturer? Well, first of all, it is a flexographic plate manufacturer, and second, it was formerly owned by Kodak. With this new life, how will Miraclon leverage their expertise to grow into a market leader?

WhatTheyThink Exclusive—Why EFI Acquired BDR Boya Kimya and What’s Up with EFI BOLT: An Interview with Adele Genoni, EFI Reggiani Vice President and General Manager

On Friday, EFI announced yet another acquisition, this time Turkish company BDR Boya Kimya, a leading manufacturer of reactive inkjet inks for industrial digital textile printing. We spoke with Adele Genoni, EFI Reggiani’s Vice President and General Manager, to get the inside scoop on this acquisition. While we had her on the line, we also asked for an update on EFI BOLT, the world’s fastest digital textile printer.

Around the Web: From Tablets to Tablets. Quantophrenia. Smart Towels. The Pinkest Pink. Email Snail Mail. Oak Gall Ink.

A new history of writing exhibition. Towels that tell you when to wash them. Why the Red Cross loves Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five.” Send a physical letter...by email. Making ink from oak galls. All that and more in WhatTheyThink’s weekly miscellany.

Print Business Challenges: Some Old Cares, Some New Concerns

In Winter 2018/2019, we conducted our annual Print Business Outlook Survey and found that the top challenges for print businesses included some new cares and concerns with some of the old challenges falling by the wayside. Could this reflect a “changing of the guard” of print business management?

2019 Sign and Display Graphics Franchise Review

In WhatTheyThink/Printing News’ Annual Sign and Display Franchise Review, Cary Sherburne takes a look at the major franchises—Alliance Franchise Brands, FASTSIGNS, Signarama, and SpeedPro—as well as the non-franchise Sign Biz network. She analyzes how they fared in the past year, as well as where they see growth opportunities in the future. Franchise center growth across all the networks has been strong, and will likely remain so. What is driving it?

Print China Gains Ground as Asia’s Largest Printing Exhibition

Held every four years since 2007, Print China alternates with China Print and offers a unique focus on Southern China’s printing industry for local and international visitors. This article provides a brief overview of the most recent iteration of the event, which was held in April at the Guangdong Modern International Exhibition Center.

Lesson from the Cracker Jack Box: Let’s Use AR Responsibly

Even as the technology and implementation of augmented reality races forward at blazing speed, many marketers are still stuck in the past. As a result, and as illustrated by my recent experience with the prize in a Cracker Jack box, it hurts the entire industry.

Solve Problems Your Customers Care About

I wish all customers’ top priority was purchasing high-quality print; it isn’t. Your customer’s have upstream problems. The printers who go upstream and solve these problems will be rewarded as manufacturers downstream.

Enabling Sales with the Right Story: “Prerequisites” for Today’s Print Sales

Pat McGrew launches a new series on selling in today’s print environment. In this introductory installment, she identifies some of the “prerequisites” that today’s print sales people need to take with them on any sales call—regardless of what kind of sales method they use.

Idealliance Develops XCMYK Color Space for Inkjet and Digital

Inkjet and digital technology typically have a large color gamut—larger than Idealliance GRACoL and Fogra. This market needed a color space, profile, and dataset so Idealliance created XCMYK.

ISA Sign Expo 2019 Wraps Up in Vegas

Some “quick hits” from the Sign Expo show floor, including the winners of the ISA Innovation Awards, some new product announcements, and more.

Sign Manufacturers—2010–2016

In 2016, there were 5,650 Sign Manufacturing establishments (NAICS 33995). The decline and rise of sign manufacturing over the course of the 2010s reflects the impact of the Great Recession, as well as the recovery and the growth of digital printing into traditional signmaking.

Around the Web: Offline Americans. Touring Greece. Loud Restaurants. Topical Typography.

10% of Americans do not use the Internet. The Comma Queen” tours Greece. The rise of the Post Office—and the decline of dueling. A new app measures the loudness of restaurants. The Presidential candidates’ typography. A requiem for the old Penn Station. All that and more in WhatTheyThink’s weekly miscellany.

Sign Expo 2019 Opens in Las Vegas

Old and new sign production technologies were on display this week in Las Vegas at the 75th Annual ISA Sign Expo and, as an additional indication of how the disparate pars of the printing industry are concverging, ISA announced that as of next year the Sign Expo will colocate with Impressions Expo, formerly the Imprinted Sportswear Show.

High-Value Digital Applications: New Opportunities on the Horizon

High-value applications and the digital devices that are required to produce them are becoming increasingly prevalent. These solutions are now moving downstream and have become accessible to medium-sized and even small print service providers. This article explores how high-value applications are coming to represent the fast track to the digital transformation.

HP Makes First Entry into Digital Textile Printing

Back in early 2018, we spoke with Mike Horsten, then Business Manager for Large Format Professional EMEA at HP, about HP’s potential plans for entering the digital textile printing market. Now, more than a year later, HP has made its first announcements, launching the HP Stitch series of textile printers. The company held a media briefing to discuss its strategy.

A Culture of Accountability to Learning in Your Print Business

Learning is the experience of trying to do something without parental supervision. It is not watching a trainer do something and shaking your head that you understand. Holding your people accountable for learning activities is the most important part of improving user adoption of new tools in your print business.

Survey: Does Color Variation Matter as Much as We Think?

Heidi Tolliver-Walker summarizes Eddy Hagen’s recent study on the impact of product packaging damage and color variation on consumer purchases. Hagen’s surveys always challenge our assumptions, and this one is no different. The conclusion? Color variation isn’t as important to consumers as it is to the rest of us.

Embellishments: What’s Old Is New Again and Still Adds Value!—Part 2

Embellishment has been a function of print production for as long as there has been printing. In fact, it almost goes back to the beginning of the writing of documents. There is no doubt that embellishment does add value to the printed product. Especially with the more recent introduction of digital embellishment technologies designed to complement digital printing. Now that embellishments have finally begun to capture market awareness, new developments are happening all the time. In part 2 of this series, David Zwang will look at new mainstream technologies that add embellishments and value to print and packaging production.

Signs.com and Ferrari Color: The Inside Story

The acquisition of Ferrari Color by Signs.com caught our attention. Senior Editor Cary Sherburne spoke with Signs.com cofounder and chief operating officer Nelson James to get the inside story.

Technology Evolution Supports New Priorities in Print Signage

The latest research from Smithers Pira identifies five key trends underpinning the shifting dynamics of demand and profitability in the market for printed signage: increasing automation, soft signage, the changing retail landscape, the evolution of Asian retail, and competition from digital signage.

Tailored Industry Revitalizing Knitwear Manufacturing in Brooklyn

Up until about 25 years ago, knitwear manufacturing was a big deal in Brooklyn. But since then, much of it has moved offshore. Tailored Industry is looking to revitalize knitwear manufacturing in Brooklyn using proprietary on-demand software and 3D full-garment knitting technology.

February 2019 Printing Shipments: Starting the Year Off on the Right Foot

Printing shipments for February 2019 came in at $6.08 billion. In keeping with the industry’s seasonality, it’s down from January, but so far 2019 shipments are higher than 2018’s.

Around the Web: Mixed Reality Retailers. Heavy Metal Knitting. Recycled Sneakers. 3D Heart. Lego Printing Press. Changing Music Formats. A Netflix Magazine. Mad Libs Sci-Fi Plot Generator.

The first Heavy Metal Knitting World Championships. Running shoes that can be recycled. A 3D-printed human heart. Danger! Facebook is launching a voice assistant! Run! Cursive handwriting is coming back. Netflix is producing a magazine. “Balloon-related incidents.” All that and more in WhatTheyThink’s weekly miscellany.

Control Waste to Improve Your Bottom Line

Although today’s printers understand that they must automate their print operations, a bias seems to exist between the potential benefits of investing in equipment vs. software. This article cites recent research from Keypoint Intelligence – InfoTrends to highlight the importance of controlling waste. By implementing processes, procedures, and software, printers can accurately measure waste and improve their quality control.

The Proven Path to High Profits: Sell as Much as You Can Produce for as Much as the Customers Will Pay

The key to effective pricing (aka profitability) is not just understanding costs, but understanding the market for print and what customers are willing to pay. Tailoring estimating and quoting to individual customers, or groups of customers, can help maximize the contribution from current customers, and potentially win customers who may have been hesitant to do business with you.

Pattern Recognition as a Path to Print Business Efficiency

Your print business is rich with patterns. By looking at patterns we can find ways to codify those patterns into processes that make us more efficient. You need real human processing for your business—free this up by taking the recurring stuff off their plates.

Four Millennials and One Gen Z Dish on QR Codes

I got four Millennials and one Gen Z in a room and peppered them with questions about QR Codes. Did they use them? Why or why not? If they didn’t, what was holding them back? What I discovered is that, in the mind of these generations, if it ain’t broke, why fix it?

When Mayhem Calls—Part 4

Planning for a catastrophe is something that every business owner knows they should do. At some point there is usually some effort applied, a plan developed, filed away, and the box checked that there is a business continuity/disaster recovery plan on file. It makes the auditors happy! But, when mayhem actually calls, will your plan actuallywork? In part four of this series, Pat McGrew offers tips on how to design and execute a continuity plan.

Commentary & Analysis

Insight You Need. Analysis You Trust.