Displaying 1-99 of 731 articles
Published February 6, 2024
Many networked, automated production capabilities are now built into the operating systems of the latest digitally controlled offset presses, but there has been no universal movement toward adoption, and printers still need guidance about what workflow is, how to implement it, and how to make the best use of it. Contributor Patrick Henry looks at how building a software-based workflow for offset production starts with understanding how the idea of workflow originated and what functions and features it now consists of.
Published January 15, 2024
Patrick Henry looks back at the life of Xerox’s Peter Crean, one of the graphic communications industry’s most groundbreaking technologists, who passed away last month.
Published December 12, 2023
Taken together, trade media announcements about the sale and installation of offset presses have a lot to say about trends and preferences in the market for this equipment. Patrick Henry rounds up some recent press placements.
Published July 12, 2023
Patrick Henry takes a deep dive into the myriad ways print businesses are implementing workflow automation, the tools they are using, and the results they have achieved. The range of what printers have accomplished indicates how much becomes possible once a plant commits to workflow automation.
Published January 25, 2023
Expert training, hands-on experience, professional certification, and supportive mentoring: all of these advantages await the young people taking part in a unique partnership for workforce development between the printing industry and a leading charitable institution.
Published December 13, 2022
Offset lithography was the predominant printing process of the 20th century, and it has given up only limited ground to alternative printing methods in the 21st. Patrick Henry reports on how manufacturers of offset press equipment still see it as an essential product to deliver and a vibrant business to be in.
Published December 6, 2022
Designers and others who were accustomed to hearing Adobe’s creative software natively speaking Pantone’s language of color are now listening to a dialog that comes with an unanticipated price tag. As a service to its members and to the industry in general, Printing Industries Alliance presents this overview of the situation and its consequences for end-users.
Published September 1, 2022
Contributor Patrick Henry profiles a Bronx-based, all-volunteer organization that demonstrates why print remains foremost among the media as a force for social good.
Published July 20, 2022
Two trade groups invite printers in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York to seek fitting recognition for their best work—Neographics, the industry’s largest regional competition for excellence in print.
Published September 13, 2021
Operating in the printing district of lower Manhattan, close by the Twin Towers, they became inadvertent witnesses to the worst domestic attack in U.S. history. Twenty years later, the events of September 11, 2001 remain seared into their memories.
Published January 30, 2017
Packaging is now a significant part of the EFI platform, and the subject got its fair share of attention at the 17th edition of the company’s annual customer-education event.
Published January 25, 2017
There’s very little in the way of graphic output that this omnifaceted imaging emporium can’t offer its customers—and now, with the addition of an HP Indigo 12000 digital press, probably nothing at all.
Published January 20, 2017
Color management works, and it has been available to designers and printers for more than 25 years. Why then do we still make mistakes in color reproduction? Shoshana Burgett of X-Rite Pantone notes that CM has to be understood as something more than calibrating a monitor. It is a set of steps, processes, and tools that must be in place across the entire production workflow, always with monitoring for continuous improvement. Designers who want color to be consistent in all the channels they are now responsible for can find the help they need in CM, Burgett says.
Published January 16, 2017
Marketing technology is exploding. Michael Chase of St. Joseph Communications says that there are now more than 3,500 providers of "MarTech" services. But, building efficient marketing platforms requires more than just cherry-picking technology solutions. Chase notes that all the MarTech in the world won't help if there is no content strategy in place to guide the effort. The first tasks are to define the kinds of content to be created and to identify the audiences to whom the content will be presented. Armed with this knowledge, says Chase, marketers can choose the right channels and work toward achievable outcomes.
Published January 10, 2017
It wasn’t the sole focus of the event, but packaging was well represented in INKredible’s salute to print’s place at the table in the omnichannel environment.
Published January 10, 2017
What is "omnichannel production" for packaging? Jean-Charles Morisseau explains that it's using packaging production data as a touchstone for accuracy throughout the entire distribution chain, including e-commerce web sites. Incorrect information and poor-quality photos and graphics hurt e-commerce sales, but Morisseau says they don't have to. All of the right content is available in packaging prepress files. It's a matter of making sure that the content is used everywhere the product is represented—an objective that Morisseau's company has a five-step plan for achieving.
Published January 9, 2017
Don't try to tell X-Rite's Shoshana Burgett that there's anything the matter with print. She'll set the record straight by pointing out that print has never been stronger as a medium for creating brand experiences. From business cards to grand format output, says Burgett, print has an enormous array of new applications that forge bonds between brands and the people the brands want to reach. And, it's not just ink on paper: the definition now includes printing on glass, ceramics, textiles, and other exotic substrates.
Published January 4, 2017
It's getting hard to think about marketing without also thinking about content: the practical, motivational, or just plain enjoyable information products that marketers increasingly rely upon to engage audiences with brands. Content marketing pro Michael Chase talks about where print fits into the engagement strategy. He says that in order to build successful "ecosystems based on content," it's necessary to operate like the protagonists of Moneyball—always with an eye on data analytics and the opportunities it reveals to make the most of the spend.
Published December 20, 2016
Research indicates that 75% of U.S. adults and 87% of Millennials want to get more product information from packages and labels. But, the amount of printable "real estate" on them is limited and jealously protected by designers and marketers. This is a clarion call to make labels and packages interactive with the help of technologies that connect consumers with the information they want, says Michael Grady of Sgsco. He notes some of the possibilities and talks about why interactivity is worth the investment cost.
Published December 15, 2016
Tod Szewczyk directs Leovative, the Leo Burnett agency's channel for keeping its clients informed about how brands are using emerging technologies to reach consumers. He points out that some of these solutions make good use of print as a bridge to the mobile experience and as a vehicle for calls to action. Szewczyk, a speaker at the IDEAlliance INKredible event, also mentions several technologies that he thinks Leovative's audience should keep an eye on in 2017.
Published December 13, 2016
A label shop serving customers on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border found everything it was looking for, and more, in a highly capable inkjet web press from Epson.
Published December 12, 2016
Interactive print, as Ethan Goller describes it, is print that combines with other media to engage recipients in a variety of ways leading to a variety of outcomes. Goller, the president of Structural Graphics, notes that one way to make print interactive is to incorporate special effects such as sound, light, and video into the printed piece. The objective, he says, should be to create "a feedback loop of intelligence" that makes sales and marketing channels more efficient.
Published December 12, 2016
When we caught up with Warren Werbitt (Pazzazz) at IDEAlliance's INKredible event and asked him what he thought of the program, "wow," "superb," and "pretty amazing" were among his answers. He says that what he discovered about the synergies between print and other media will help Pazzazz send a more powerful marketing message to its customers. Werbitt's advice to print company owners who think they don't have time for intelligence-gathering opportunities like INKredible "If you sit at your desk and never go out, you can't learn, you can't grow, and you can't motivate."
Published December 6, 2016
Given all of the mandates and expectations placed on packaging today, there may be something socially significant to add to the list of traditional packaging functions.
Published December 2, 2016
Neoterix ST gives medical institutions and other germ-fighting environments the first completely non-toxic solution for blocking bacterial growth on high-touch surfaces.
Published November 29, 2016
To many, Australia may seem to be on the far side of the world, but the business issues confronting packaging and label producers there are much the same as they are anywhere else. A recent conference by a newly formed trade association addressed some of them.
Published November 22, 2016
KBA's intensive focus on the packaging market can be seen in the large portfolio of products it has developed for packaging applications of many different kinds. Eric Frank, director of marketing, talks about the new VariJet 106, a hybrid inkjet/conventional/finishing platform that will be built to order for specific market segments. He also reviews KBA's capabilities in flexography, diecutting, metal decorating, and VLF (very large format) offset.
Published November 8, 2016
Imagine a press so thoroughly automated that it almost seems to be a member of its own crew. This is what Heidelberg says it has made possible with the concept it calls “Push to Stop.”
Published November 4, 2016
Idealliance is billing INKredible as “a showcase for innovators in orchestrated content marketing and publishing”: a category that most definitely includes print service providers.
Published November 1, 2016
No vendor understands mail processing workflows better than Pitney Bowes. Here, PB's Grant Miller explains how the company has put what it knows into the AcceleJet printing and finishing system, a "white paper factory" solution for commercial printers and other print/mail environments. With AcceleJet, rollfed white paper goes in, and fully printed and finished mailing pieces come out. As this is happening, a cloud-based software solution called Clarity Suites gathers production data that can be used to make the workflow even more efficient.
Published October 25, 2016
The industry’s solutions for cultivating workforce talent aren’t perfect. But, given the graying of the industry and the thinning of its ranks in production occupations, it’s urgent to use them to their full extent.
Published October 23, 2016
"We believe in the printed word". So declares Claus Bolza-Schünemann, president of KBA, as he reviews the state of the industry as a whole and his company's position within it. He says that the success of drupa 2016—an event he traveled the world to promote as chairman of its executive committee—proves that there is no longer any excuse for "whining and crying about how bad the industry is." He also discusses how KBA regained its strength and forward momentum after several tough years of post-recession restructuring.
Published October 12, 2016
Although not a show about labels and packaging per se, Graph Expo proved to be a worthwhile place to go for information on innovative ways of producing them.
Published October 7, 2016
If you’re intrigued by the idea of a conference where the presentations are capped at 25 minutes and the proceedings are enlivened by 15-minute “inspiration bursts” in which speakers can deliver “hard-hitting rants,” pencil in December 6 at the Princeton Club in New York City. That will be the premiere of INKredible, a new event hosted by Idealliance for printing, publishing, and advertising professionals. Here, conference organizer Steven Schnoll explains what will make the program special.
Published October 3, 2016
Last week, Graph Expo 2016 made a successful change of scene from its traditional home in Chicago to a new venue in Orlando. It was apparent on day one that the show had traveled well and that its value to exhibitors and visitors was intact. Graph Expo returns to Chicago next year and is scheduled to be back in Orlando in 2019.
Published September 30, 2016
Graph Expo’s first outing in Orlando proved that how large or small a trade show is matters less than how well it fits its surroundings—and vice versa.
Published September 23, 2016
After 38 years, multiple relocations, and herculean labors, this extraordinary collection has a permanent home and a compelling story to tell.
Published September 20, 2016
Corrugated packaging protects effectively, presents handsomely, and succeeds environmentally. What’s not to like or to give credit where due?
Published September 16, 2016
We interact with packages so much and so often that we sometimes begin to merge with them—and they with us.
Published September 7, 2016
For the last 20 years, Dallas attorney Chris Antone has acted as a labor and employment counsel to printing companies. He says that in order to run their businesses without fear of intrusion by government agencies, printers must stay up to date on developments in HR-related laws and regulations. There can be "severe legal implications" for those who run afoul of these rules, says Antone, adding that the best policy is to have "trained, first-line supervisory staff who know how to manage people."
Published September 2, 2016
Food waste is a shameful spectacle wherever it occurs. The problem is global, but so are efforts to solve it with new solutions for extending the edible lives of packaged foods.
Published August 24, 2016
The trade association IDEAlliance operates Leading Indicators™, a survey-based summary of metrics, trends, and issues critical to print, mail, fulfillment, and marketing services providers. Printer Warren Werbitt is a regular contributor to and a firm believer in the Leading Indicators database, which he calls essential to making educated decisions about business strategy. He also talks about why he's "thrilled" to see Epicomm and IDEAlliance become one organization.
Published August 23, 2016
The Paper Converting Machine Company (PCMC) recently introduced its newest central impression (CI) flexographic packaging press, the Fusion C, in an open-house event at its factory in Green Bay, WI. PCMC’s Rodney J. Pennings talks about what makes the Fusion C unique and discusses the company’s commitment to lean manufacturing.
Published August 9, 2016
The Paper Converting Machine Company is North America’s only remaining manufacturer of CI flexo presses. It’s also distinguished by the humanistic style of its leadership—a management philosophy that cherishes employees as family members.
Published August 4, 2016
Printing to numbers in a calibrated production environment using grey balance as the reference—this is the essence of the G7 process control methodology, and by now, most printers have heard about it. Fewer have embracedit, but IDEAlliance's Steve Bonoff foresees greater adoption as brands press their print service providers to adopt a uniform approach to process control. Then, he says, the ROI of G7 can come quickly.
Published August 2, 2016
The disconnect between flexible packaging and inkjet printing is wide, but not necessarily unbridgeable. Fujifilm thinks it has the answer in an innovative LED-UV inkjet press it showed at drupa 2016.
Published July 27, 2016
Content marketing—every organization with customers wants to do it, but creating, targeting, and distributing high-quality content is hard, time-consuming work. Enter MAX From InterlinkONE, a software tool for automating content marketing campaigns. InterlinkONE's Karen DeWolfe says that with MAX, users can easily integrate and share content of all types in true cross-media fashion.
Published July 26, 2016
In one way or another, the changes will alter the labeling of virtually every packaged food and beverage product. But, label producers expect to be able to take it all in stride.
Published July 22, 2016
John Falconetti, a printer in Jacksonville, FL, says he keeps his company pointed at it by taking part in Leading Indicators™, a benchmarking program launched last year by Epicomm (now part of IDEAlliance). As a member of the Leading Indicators reporting group, Drummond Press gets monthly updates on how its business performance compares with that of other printing companies in the database. Falconetti also has good things to say about the association's apprenticeship and peer networking programs.
Published July 20, 2016
As president of the trade association Printing Industries Alliance, Tim Freeman sees his job as helping printers help each other by bringing them together in productive programs such as the guided tour he organized for his members at drupa 2016. He says that when printers take part in trade shows and other association-sponsored activities, they coalesce as an industry and find new ways to solve common problems. Printing Industries Alliance has an admirable record of making this happen in the membership territory it serves.
Published July 18, 2016
As a former chairman of Epicomm, Mike Kellogg served as an advisor to the Graphic Arts Show Company (GASC), producer of the Graph Expo and Print events. He observes that because of the rise of digitization, data, and the convergence of technologies, print industry trade shows now are less about showcasing heavy equipment and more about exchanging innovative ideas. He's optimistic about Graph Expo 2016, moving for the first time from Chicago to a new venue in Orlando.
Published July 14, 2016
As a member of IDEAlliance's board of directors, marketing services expert Wes Powell witnessed the group's merger with Epicomm from the inside. He praises the board members and professional staff of both associations for working "in lock step" to make the new arrangement—which took full effect on July 1—a success. He says that the process was "pretty seamless" and that the result will be a broader range of services for all IDEAlliance members.
Published July 13, 2016
Five years ago, John Foley published Business Transformation: a New Path to Profit for the Printing Industry. The work was and is a handbook for strategic planning, sales and marketing development, team building, operations management, and more. In the just-published second edition, Foley adds case studies from print service providers that have succeeded by putting the book's advice into practice.
Published July 12, 2016
A master printer, a consultant, and now, the leader of Heidelberg’s Prinect workflow software business, Anthony Thirlby has a framework for process automation that he says can transform every printing plant.
Published July 5, 2016
A new label and package printing company is open for business in Lowell, MA. It's called InTouch Labels & Packaging, and while its start-up footprint may be small, its ambitions are anything but.
Published July 1, 2016
In New York City, industry members who care passionately about education have given nearly $700,000 in scholarship grants to students of graphic communications—all without overhead expenses or strings attached.
Published June 30, 2016
On July 1, Tim Johnson will officially step into his role as chairman of the board of IDEAlliance, a trade association that has incorporated Epicomm and welcomed the members of the three former trade groups of which Epicomm was composed. With the work of blending staffs, cultures, and management procedures satisfactorily under way, says Johnson, members can look forward to obtaining all of the advisory services they need from a single source.
Published June 29, 2016
What could make a busy printer travel all the way from Buffalo, New York, to Düsseldorf, Germany? drupa 2016, of course, and Steve Zenger, president of the Zenger Group, says that the big show—his first drupa—gave him all the trend and technical information he was looking for. Zenger came to the fair as a member of a productively organized "drupa experience" tour organized by Printing Industries Alliance, a trade association representing his state and part of Pennsylvania.
Published June 28, 2016
Digital printing for flexible packaging has been slow to take hold, but a start-up company in Madison, WI, says it is equipped and ready for a fast break into this potentially lucrative market.
Published June 28, 2016
Packages used to have just two principal functions: to protect their contents and convey them safely to the point of sale. Now they also have to be “brand narrators” that hold consumers in sustained post-sale engagements with the brands. Digimarc Corp.’s Larry Logan explains how technology can ensure that packaging remains “the most salient touch point between the consumer and the product.”
Published June 23, 2016
It would be hard to turn in a stronger performance at a trade show than the one HP Inc. achieved at drupa 2016. The company held hundreds of customer meetings, sold most of the equipment (more than 50 digital presses) at its stand, and announced record deals with the likes of Cimpress and Shutterfly. But, says Enrique Lores, president of HP Inc.'s Imaging and Printing Business, the splash at drupa is only typical of the success the company has been enjoying as HP Indigo presses and other products continue to gain market share.
Published June 22, 2016
Now a branding consultant, Mike Ferrari spent more than 30 years at Procter & Gamble as a specialist in producing branded packaging. He says that over that period of time, packages have taken on a central role as promotional vehicles in omnichannel shopping for consumer goods. At drupa 2016, he saw how workflow and other advances in production are making packages even better able to meet the marketing objectives that brand owners have for them.
Published June 21, 2016
The business of printing labels and packaging is changing with almost unnerving speed. Made reassuringly clear at drupa was the fact that new technologies for label and packaging production can give printers the capabilities they must have.
Published June 15, 2016
How did a manufacturer of newspaper presses become a supplier of equipment for nearly all major printing applications, including digital output? That is the story of KBA, and the company's president, Claus Bolza-Schünemann, tells it with justifiable pride. Among the latest highlights is KBA's ongoing development, with Xerox, of the VariJET 106, an innovative hybrid sheetfed press targeting the folding carton market.
Published June 14, 2016
drupa 2016 wasn’t exclusively a packaging show, but for label- and packaging-minded visitors, it might as well have been—there was that much to see and be impressed by.
Published June 8, 2016
Claus Bolza-Schünemann currently is the president not only of KBA but also of drupa, the international printing and paper trade fair. Here, he traces its evolution from a heavy-iron expo into a full-spectrum graphic communications showcase that puts specialties like 3D printing and functional printing alongside the latest developments in conventional and digital print production. The goal, Bolza-Schünemann says, is to make drupa "a very attractive fair for all of our customers" that also promotes the world-bestriding stature and influence of printing in all of its forms.
Published June 5, 2016
Ryobi and Mitsubishi merged two years ago to create RMGT. At drupa the company is showcasing new offset technology that leverages the synergies of the two companies.
Published May 31, 2016
Exclusive Interview with EFI SVP/GM Scott Schinlever on the Launch of the Nozomi C18000 inkjet press. The single pass inkjet press brings high-speed corrugated board production to the $130 billion corrugated packaging industry.
Published May 27, 2016
The main criterion for presentations at trade association meetings is relevance. Printer Tom Mercier gives high marks for relevance to the sessions he attended at the recent Epicomm Experience gathering, where mergers and acquisitions, sales development, and personnel recruitment were among the many pertinent subjects under discussion. Mercier also thinks that the success of the conference bodes well for Epicomm's merger with IDEAlliance, which he calls "a win-win for print, mailing, and everything else we do."
Published May 26, 2016
David Mastervich spent much of his 33-year career with the U.S. Postal Service promoting the use of direct mail. Today he works for Hewlett Packard Enterprise, but his focus on direct mail hasn't changed. Mastervich says that as printers and mailers have embraced data management and digital production, direct mail has become a much more targeted and responsive medium than it used to be. He saw plenty of evidence of this progress at the recent Epicomm Experience event, where the emphasis was on technologies for mailing.
Published May 26, 2016
Nobody ever said that the sheetfed offset equipment market is easy to do business in. But RMGT, a partnership between two of Japan’s best known press manufacturers, thinks it has what it takes to make the most of the opportunities that the market still holds.
Published May 25, 2016
So advises John Cassidy of Duplicates INK, who explored creative strategies in a highly rated presentation called "Cross the Line and Disrupt Your Market" at the recent Epicomm Experience conference. Cassidy believes that innovation is still possible even in mature industries like printing. Printers can achieve it, he says, by asking their top customers two questions: "What do you want more of out of me? What can I do to be a 10?"
Published May 24, 2016
Steven Portrude learned a long time ago that there is no substitute for the wisdom of his peers in the printing industry. At the recent Epicomm Experience conference, he talked about what he has learned from other owners he has come to know through taking part in trade association activities. Even competitors open up to one another at these gatherings, Portrude says. "This is where you get an education on how to run a business."
Published May 24, 2016
Malia Lageman, who traveled all the way from Honolulu to Savannah to take part in Epicomm Experience, found that the program made the long trip more than worthwhile. Here, she talks about the networking opportunities it gave her, especially with exhibiting vendors; the high energy of the speakers she listened to; and the ideas she gained during conference-related plant tours.
Published May 23, 2016
On July 1, the trade associations Epicomm and IDEAlliance will go forward as one under the IDEAlliance name. Ken Garner and David Steinhardt, respectively executive vice president and president/CEO of the combined organization, talk about how bringing the groups together will enhance the value of membership for the more than 3,000 companies now under the IDEAlliance banner. They say that the first positive outcome is the launch of a certification program for mailing professionals.
Published May 12, 2016
Production digital printing is 25 years old, yet only 2.5% of all printed pages come from digital devices. Yishai Amir, CEO of Landa Digital Printing, says that if digital printing is to move into the mainstream, it will have to prove that it is fully competitive with offset lithography in quality, speed, printable format size, and cost to print. According to Amir, just one process—the one he is responsible for bringing to market—can demonstrate all of these capabilities.
Published May 11, 2016
Because trade associations mirror the industries they serve, it’s no surprise to see consolidation taking place among the groups that serve the printing industry. IDEAlliance, an association promoting technical standards, demonstrated this by incorporating Epicomm, a group representing commercial printers, quick printers, and mail service providers. According to Marriott Winchester, the chairman of IDEAlliance, the outcome is a highly complementary relationship that benefits everyone concerned.
Published May 10, 2016
Warren Werbitt is a passionate printer, and one of his most successfully cultivated passions is the production of high-quality, high-margin labels and packaging.
Published May 4, 2016
The company, traditionally known for postage meters, sees a $40 billion marketplace for its digitally enabled shipping and transaction services.
Published May 4, 2016
Jonny Kaldor is the creator of Pugpig, a mobile publishing platform for delivering content in whatever format is optimal for the end-user’s device. He says that as devices and mobile channels continue to proliferate, the only way to keep up with them will be to embrace a create-once, render-many publishing workflow. This is called structured content, and Kaldor thinks that nontraditional publishers may find it easier to develop and share than publishers locked into design-centric, print-based workflows.
Published May 3, 2016
Sappi’s credentials as a supplier of coated fine papers are impeccable. Now the company is taking steps to achieve the same high profile as a source of papers for packaging and labels.
Published May 3, 2016
Marriott Winchester (SGS Americas) says that new Food and Drug Administration regulations for food labeling represent “the most significant generational event in the food and beverage industry that we’ve seen” since placing nutritional information on labels was first mandated 23 years ago. In this conversation, he explains why food producers and packagers should move full speed ahead toward compliance.
Published April 25, 2016
Have you ever stressed out at a self-checkout station because you couldn’t scan the #@?§#! UPC code on the package? Digimarc Corp. has come up with a way to make the entire surface of the package scannable, but in a way that’s invisible to the eye. Digimarc’s Larry Logan explains how the innovation makes packaging a part of the Internet of Things.
Published April 21, 2016
The wait has been long, and the anticipation has been intense. But, Landa Digital Printing believes it can amply reward both with what it will debut at drupa 2016.
Published April 19, 2016
HP’s sense of itself as a change agent for digital printing is strong. The very broad range of digital solutions it will show at drupa 2016 befits the size of its ambition.
Published April 13, 2016
When equity investors decided it was time to give the 250-store Duane Reade pharmacy chain a brand makeover, they handed the task to Todd Maute and his partners at the CBX branding agency. CBX accomplished it in part by creating five private-label brands that required large volumes of printed packaging. Maute says the experience shows how printing technologies can put powerful branding tools in the hands of brand owners and creatives.
Published April 13, 2016
Administered by IDEAlliance, the G7 protocols for grayscale definition and device calibration have become widely accepted standards for color management. No organization has made a stronger commitment to G7 than Konica Minolta, which claims to employ more G7-certified experts than any other printing systems vendor. Konica Minolta’s Dino Pagliarello talks about what makes the company’s belief in G7 so firmly rooted.
Published April 12, 2016
HP PrintOS is a new cloud-based print production operating system that will be launched by HP at drupa 2016. It consists of web and mobile apps designed to help print service providers boost the productivity of their HP devices. Simon Lewis, in charge of its development, talks about the genesis of Print OS and the range of benefits it can deliver.
Published April 11, 2016
Haptics is the branch of neuroscience concerned with the sense of touch. Daniel Dejean of Sappi discusses why the tactile appeal of print—along with all of the other kinds of sensory stimulation it provides—can be such a powerful advantage for the medium in brand marketing campaigns.
Published April 6, 2016
If you are planning to attend drupa 2016, make sure your agenda gives you plenty of time to review what HP will be bringing to Hall 17. There is going to be a great deal to see.
Published April 5, 2016
HP is venturing into post-print production with Pack Ready, a set of solutions it is patenting and develop with partners. The first product is Pack Ready Lamination, which uses a thermal lamination process to convert flexible pouches immediately after printing on HP Indigo equipment. HP’s Dr. Asaf Salant says that Pack Ready Lamination will be of keen interest to converters who want to reduce time to market and to label printers who want to break into flexible packaging.
Published April 5, 2016
A decision to attend drupa 2016 represents a major investment of time and travel expense. The director of the global event talks about why label and packaging producers are among those who should most seriously consider making it.
Published April 4, 2016
Exclusive Interview: Benny Landa says that the nanographic inkjet printing process he unveiled at drupa 2012 was a “promise.” At drupa 2016, he intends to deliver on that promise with live demonstrations of nanographic equipment that he says can print offset quality at offset speed on any paper stock at an offset-competitive cost. In this exclusive interview, Landa discusses why he believes the commercialization of nanography will be the second time one of his technologies has revolutionized digital printing.
Published March 23, 2016
Now, what was it you wanted to sell me? If the format of your advertising pitch is one that inspires confidence and trust, we may be able to do business.
Published March 22, 2016
The company finally has made a full commitment to digital, most notably with the coming launch of a B1 inkjet press. But conventional production will still anchor its presence at the show.
Published March 9, 2016
Starting a trade association isn’t the same thing as establishing a trade association. Giving it a base for an extended life of service to its members requires long-range planning and determined execution. This is the story of NPOA.
Published March 8, 2016
As the event nears, Heidelberg wants to be seen in a different light: less dependent on equipment, more open to partnership, wholly focused on production efficiency.
Published March 8, 2016
At Lofton Label, Jimmy Rana obtains measurable benefits from using EFI's Radius enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution to optimize processes through comprehensive data gathering and analysis.
Published March 1, 2016
To build a multi-capable network of companies, what better place to begin than the label and packaging business? Just ask Christopher Che.
Published February 22, 2016
To have a branding strategy for digital printing, there first has to be a cohesive family of digital printing products. Heidelberg says that it now has both.
Published February 17, 2016
What instinct tells us about the effectiveness of print has now scientific backing that links it to measurable brain activity, as detailed in a study commissioned by the U.S. Postal Service.
Published February 15, 2016
Does “privacy” have meaning any more? People are sometimes willing to trade personal information for rewards—even when they know they are going to regret it. There are implications for print in the conflict.
Published February 9, 2016
The user conference was too wide-ranging to have a single keynote, but it was a good place to catch up with what EFI is doing to streamline packaging workflows.
Published February 4, 2016
There are those who envision a future free or nearly free of packaging. Although it might seem unachievable, some tentative steps in that direction have been taken.
Published February 2, 2016
Look around the produce section of your supermarket. Notice how many colorfully printed flexible bags there are? Meet the company that put some of them there.
Published January 25, 2016
As leaders in their respective fields, Guy Gecht and Steve Wynn share an exceptional ability to hold a stage and captivate an audience. Both played to a packed house as keynote speakers at EFI Connect 2016.
Published January 18, 2016
Paper currency has been part of the American mindset ever since Benjamin Franklin pamphleteered for it in 1729. But, folding money has to confront 21st-century trends that could displace it.
Published January 13, 2016
Just when we thought that the definition of “printing” had been pushed to the limit, along comes a new one that envisions morphing objects made of self-assembling materials.
Published January 12, 2016
Now a committed developer of digital printing systems, Heidelberg knows where it wants to go in the digital equipment market and what it can do to get there.
Published January 5, 2016
A special report ahead of drupa 2016 sees the event as the setting for a turning point in the adoption of digital printing for packaging production.
Published December 22, 2015
The greeting card, a tradition and an industry in one, is struggling in its present form but faces no shortage of creative possibilities for the future.
Published December 21, 2015
A promotional campaign for paper and packaging goes for the heartstrings with special boxes to be filled with gifts for kids spending the holidays in hospitals.
Published December 18, 2015
Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity is 100 years old, but his appeal as a creative inspiration for graphic illustrators is 100 years young.
Published December 15, 2015
2015 was a chock-full-of-news year on the technology front—but only a curtain-raiser for what lies ahead in 2016.
Published December 15, 2015
Santa Claus, who knows a thing or two about packaging, has a sackful of innovations for fans of the art form this year.
Published December 11, 2015
HP Inc. believes that the same "megatrends" toward short-run, on demand production and versioning that have transformed other print markets will have a comparable effect on packaging. It's potentially a $13.6 billion opportunity, and HP Inc. sees corrugated as an ideal place for the transformation to begin.
Published December 9, 2015
For the holidays, “shop early and shop often” is still good advice—assuming that you know what “early” now is starting to mean in the retailing world.
Published December 8, 2015
The two technology leaders want to take digital printing for packaging to the next level—and to several levels after that—with a 110-inch-wide web inkjet press specifically for the corrugated market.
Published December 8, 2015
Two technology leaders want to take digital printing for packaging to the next level—and to several levels after that—with a 110-inch-wide web inkjet press specifically for the corrugated market.
Published December 7, 2015
The R&D and the building of the first working model took just two years. Now, HP Inc.'s Eric Wiesner and KBA's Christoph Müller discuss how the companies will deploy marketing, sales, and support strategies with the same kind of high-efficiency cooperation.
Published November 30, 2015
Take another look at the tried-and-true stuff that shipping cartons are made of. Some top developers of packaging printing technology are.
Published November 24, 2015
Packaging isn’t everything at Island Pro Digital, a printing company with a highly diversified product base. But, it represents some of the most interesting work that the firm fabricates for its clients.
Published November 23, 2015
The scale of the program is modest, but when the young writers who take part in it see their words in print, its achievement seems far-reaching.
Published November 19, 2015
That old hippie mood ring you’d die of embarrassment to be seen wearing now? It was the cutting edge of an important decorative technology for labels and packaging.
Published November 17, 2015
A growth forecast of half a percentage point per year may not sound like much, but it indicates undeniable post-recession momentum for the folding carton market.
Published November 16, 2015
Building the world’s first “print shop in a box” was a watershed achievement for Xerox. So was marketing and selling it—a story that “DocuFrank” knows from the inside.
Published November 10, 2015
Printers working with UV curing have a new technology to learn about, if they are not already acquainted with it: UV LED
Published November 3, 2015
A label and carton company doesn’t get to be 137 years old without having made an unwavering commitment to quality. The 137-year-old label and carton company profiled here has done it by adopting a well-known philosophy of continuous improvement as its playbook.
Published November 2, 2015
Stink-squelching film, inkless color printing, and built-in 3D bar codes are three recent laboratory innovations that could be commercialized as packaging problem-solvers.
Published October 28, 2015
Can you say “sesquicentennial”? It’s an anniversary. This company feels the pride and the joy of every one of its 150 years.
Published October 19, 2015
People don’t like packages that look as though they contain more than is actually inside them. But, prosecutors and class-action attorneys do.
Published October 14, 2015
WhatTheyThink's Patrick Henry talks to Mark Abramson CEO at PrintForm about creating complex packaging product with run-lengths of one. PrintForm was recently involved in the team that created a printed virtual reality headset and talks about building teams to do this type of work.
Published October 13, 2015
As long as The New York Times remains in print, it will print on a massive scale. This is exactly what takes place every evening at the paper’s main plant in College Point, Queens.
Published October 7, 2015
A dust-sized anti-counterfeiting tag for medicine pills? Turns out the idea isn’t hard to swallow or digest.
Published October 6, 2015
Three pairs of eyes that have seen it all in print measurement are looking straight at the acceptability of press output from machines of every type.
Published October 5, 2015
Among printers, honors and awards signal deep bonds of friendship and respect. In New York City, it’s a tradition that industry members still turn out in force to celebrate.
Published September 30, 2015
Anyone who has ever picked up a glossy magazine probably has touched SAPPI publication paper. Now the company hopes to achieve the same kind of ubiquity with its packaging papers.
Published September 29, 2015
Millions—perhaps billions—have seen his font creations. Those quoted here understand their lasting significance for the art of typography.
Published September 22, 2015
Those who came to the show in search of answers for packaging production should have had no trouble locating them in the vendor stands and specialty areas where packaging solutions were being featured.
Published September 15, 2015
Not every packaging printer has what it takes to pass muster with this performance-certifying organization. But, those that clear GMI’s high bar can claim elite status among packaging service suppliers.
Published September 14, 2015
“Everything under one roof” took on a new and dazzling meaning as Canon made good on the promise at Canon Expo, its 100,000-square-foot technology showcase in New York City
Published September 8, 2015
This month, Canon will make a triple play for industry attention with events that illuminate how far it has come as a source of production solutions.
Published September 4, 2015
The Securities and Exchange Commission wants to modernize the way the investment industry reports on what it does. The plan could include freeing these companies from having to print and mail certain shareholder documents.
Published September 3, 2015
On Tuesday, November 8, 2016, Americans will go to the polls to elect 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, 34 U.S. Senators, 11 state Governors, and one President. It’s been widely reported that next year’s election cycle will be the costliest in history, with spending by candidates, parties, outside groups, and individuals expected to be as high as $10 billion.
Published September 1, 2015
Packaging professionals who haven’t yet decided whether to invest in a trip to the show still have time to give the idea the serious consideration it deserves.
Published August 25, 2015
As consumers demand more variety, food packaging production gets harder to stay ahead of—but not if the producer is as well equipped and as versatile as this market leader.
Published August 20, 2015
Technical advancements and process improvements in flexography should keep it secure in its key applications. even in the face of competition from digital.
Published August 13, 2015
For many people, an empty package is an artist’s kit full of creative opportunity. Brand owners may not fully appreciate how they benefit when their packaging is repurposed for fun or practicality by end-using consumers.
Published August 12, 2015
For printing and printing-related businesses, penalties for safety citations in OHA’s most recent reporting period came to $735,464—not a huge sum, relatively speaking, but a number worth thinking about all the same.
Published August 7, 2015
Not sure how to frame the argument about the environmental impact of paper and print? A new collection of facts dispels the myths.
Published August 5, 2015
If e-ink and e-paper haven’t yet taken the world of graphic communications by storm, that doesn’t necessarily mean they never will.
Published August 5, 2015
Companies that print food labels work hard to make sure that the information on them is correct. It’s a matter of professional pride and, very often, also one of complying with the law. But, out there in the consumer marketplace, who cares?
Published July 27, 2015
Vatican City may be the world’s smallest sovereign state, but it has world-class environmental ambitions as well as the media resources to promote its activism.
Published July 27, 2015
Paper suppliers have made an all-out commitment to putting a floor under the declining use of their products—including levying a volume-based fee on themselves to pay for the effort.
Published July 22, 2015
“Open Up to Cans” is what consumers are being urged to do by a can makers’ trade association. But, when it come to beverages, most already have.
Published July 20, 2015
Everyone who has ever made a photocopy knows the legacy of Chester Carlson, but few outside the graphics industry know his name. A television program may help to give the inventor of xerography the exposure he deserves.
Published July 17, 2015
Everyone makes generalizations about age groups. Those who generalize about younger adults and their feelings for books probably will be wrong.
Published July 14, 2015
An investment banker turned label printer is building a network with a widening geographic reach and a deepening capability in flexo and digital production.
Published July 9, 2015
Corporate promulgators of spurious “green” claims that disrespect printing, be warned: a riposte and a recantation may be in your future.
Published July 8, 2015
What would Bubble Wrap be without poppability? Alas, we are about to find out.
Published July 7, 2015
This privately owned folding carton company follows a straight line from its family values to its strategies for business growth.
Published June 24, 2015
There’s strength in numbers—and in “clusters” of businesses like the ones that have come together to reinvigorate paper manufacturing in Massachusetts.
Published June 18, 2015
Smart screens that look back at their onlookers are only the beginning of the changes that digital technology will bring to signage and display markets that used to belong to—but now must be shared by—conventional print.
Published June 16, 2015
Typography for packaging design will never be the same after Hermann Zapf—and always will be.
Published June 12, 2015
In a perfect world, food and beverage producers wouldn't have to spend billions to protect themselves against bogus packaging. But, at least they have effective ways to spend the money.
Published June 9, 2015
A rapid changeover from conventional to digital production was both the cause and the result of the installation of digital printing equipment at Accu-Label Inc.
Published June 5, 2015
Digital printing for packaging has room to grow and the means to achieve that growth. There was plenty of room for discussion about making it happen at a recent symposium of experts in Tampa.
Published June 2, 2015
“Champions” of print will work with academics in the field to advance the development of printing technologies on all fronts.
Published June 1, 2015
Put ink on paper, and you have a print. Do the same thing as part of a process known as selective deposition lamination, and you can have a three-dimensional object in full, ICC-compliant color.
Published May 27, 2015
When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, it may be because someone has printed or drawn the moon (or another visually arresting image) on the box.
Published May 26, 2015
Trust, a handshake, and an eye on luxury packaging are behind the newly formed partnership between Mohawk and Arjowiggins Creative Papers.
Published May 25, 2015
If e-ink and e-paper haven’t yet taken the world of graphic communications by storm, that doesn’t necessarily mean they never will.
Published May 22, 2015
You can honor those who serve, have served, and will serve in America’s armed forces by buying and quaffing “Homefront IPA” this Memorial Day.
Published May 19, 2015
In a package, you see the design, but you experience the engineering: the underlying combination of technical merits that make it practical to use as well as delightful to behold.
Published May 14, 2015
Rochester, NY, is distinguished for many things connected to the printing industry. Hammer Packaging is keeping that tradition alive in an exceptionally employee-friendly way.
Published May 12, 2015
Deciding when packaged food has gone bad is a tough call that we often get wrong. At MIT, they’ve come up with a guesswork-eliminating solution.
Published May 12, 2015
Can flexography do a better job with opaque whites, hard-to-hold details, and other hurdles for packaging printing with the process? Kodak says yes.
Published May 7, 2015
The concept of what a “book” is means more than it used to—and not just because of the rise of e-reading devices.
Published May 4, 2015
Every beverage bottle must have a label to identify and brand the product—correct? Not necessarily, says the developer of a direct-printing alternative.
Published April 28, 2015
Established seven years ago, this small but visionary shop is a case study in the rise of digital technologies in the label printing segment.
Published April 27, 2015
By adding a third dimension to what it already knows about inkjet printing in two, HP hopes to develop the fastest and most capable 3D printing solution yet seen.
Published April 22, 2015
How an earth-friendly cleaning products company called method scours the ocean for plastic waste it can recycle into material for new containers.
Published April 21, 2015
A vertically integrated ink manufacturer, Sun Chemical takes a concept-to-shelf approach to packaging with a broad range of products and services for printers and converters.
Published April 20, 2015
Screen-based advertising technologies are gaining ground in outdoor locations, but the prospects for in-store digital media are less clear. New research aims to find out what they mean for conventionally produced store signage and PoP.
Published April 20, 2015
The How2Recycle Label is a much-needed visual cue in the right place at the right time.
Published April 17, 2015
Eliminate the peel-away part of a pressure sensitive label while protecting it from the adhesive on the backs of the other labels it’s rolled or stacked with: it can be done and is being done in the solution known as linerless labeling.
Published April 6, 2015
A new study contends that the U.S. Postal Service significantly understates the value of the economic advantages it enjoys as a government-mandated monopoly—advantages it can and does leverage in the markets where it competes with private services.
Published April 6, 2015
When designers forget that that the product experience, not the act of opening the package, is what consumers are paying for, things can get stressful.
Published March 31, 2015
This North Carolina packaging printing firm has earned its place in a demanding market through stringent quality control, smart technology investments, and ultra-efficient production workflows.
Published March 27, 2015
E-ink may not have eclipsed conventional ink-on-paper publishing, but it is far from having run out of applications that showcase its unique capabilities.
Published March 25, 2015
While we are waiting for flowers to bloom in the spring, we can admire the recent crop of plant openings or expansions in various segments of the packaging industry.
Published March 24, 2015
A Chinese computer-to-plate systems manufacturer and an American counterpart have joined forces to offer CTP devices that they say are as good as if not better than any other such solutions now on the market.
Published March 20, 2015
On the face of it, all the GASC announcement says is that there will be a one-year detour to Orlando between now and 2017, when the Print show will have its prescheduled run at McCormick Place in Chicago. That’s also where we’ll be heading for Graph Expo this year—no change there, either. So, what’s the larger story?
Published March 19, 2015
He may or may not be Irish, but he leads the parade when it comes to straight-talking printers about their obstacles, options, and opportunities.
Published March 17, 2015
High, wide, and in its own way, handsome: that’s the kind of machine HP and KBA are out to build in HP’s T1100 Simplex Color Inkjet Web Press, a solution meant to introduce digital printing to top liners for corrugated packaging.
Published March 13, 2015
An almost-discarded memory stick turns the clock back to 2008 and thoughts to what was important at drupa that year—and now.
Published March 12, 2015
The Constantia Flexibles Labels Division of Spear Inc. recently announced that it has found a way to make pressure sensitive labels compatible with recycling methods for bottles molded from PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic. This is a breakthrough, says the company, because it offers an affordable and environmentally friendly solution for bring pressure sensitive labeling to the 400 billion PET bottles the world uses annually.
Published March 10, 2015
The most successful packaging printing companies that Jürgen Grimm has seen are the ones that have their processes most thoroughly under control. In this interview, the president of Heidelberg USA talks about how that control can be achieved.
Published March 9, 2015
Quick: what’s the one form of printed matter that most of us are likeliest to have in our possession at any given moment of the day?
Published March 3, 2015
Flexo claims almost two-thirds of tag & label market production, but some brand owners still view it negatively. By 2018, 50% of installed tag & label presses will be digital. There’s more—keep reading.
Published February 27, 2015
By now, you may have heard about Kodak’s ChiefPackagingOfficer, a new online resource for packaging professionals. If you haven’t, its publisher, Joshua Fedeli, wants you to know why the portal is worth your time, attention, and participation.
Published February 25, 2015
IDEAlliance has a handy information resource it calls the Just Enough Video Knowledge Bank. It’s a visual glossary of print and publishing technology terms that offers exactly what the name says: “just enough” information about these topics to get a conversation started or to serve as a starting point for deeper research.
Published February 18, 2015
We heard from Regis Delmontagne in response to a post about the impact of the drupa decision on the timing and planning of U.S. printing trade shows operated by the Graphic Arts Show Company (GASC). Delmontagne was president of the National Printing and Equipment Association (NPES), as it was called during his tenure, from 1976 to 2005. He also was president of GASC in the years when the Print and Graph Expo shows reached their peaks of attendance and exhibitor participation.
Published February 17, 2015
Say “MBO” to anyone in the industry, and the reply will be “folders.” That answer still passes the word association test, but it’s far from being the full story of what this diversified supplier of graphic equipment now has to offer printers and packagers.
Published February 13, 2015
Like a pair of planets with intersecting orbits, the drupa and Print expos are going to cross paths on the calendar in 2025 and overlap in six additional years after that through the end of the century.
Published February 12, 2015
What does a package do? It contains, protects, transports, and identifies what’s inside it. That’s the neat, four-cornered functional description of a package. Here are some edgier ones—and a couple that don’t have edges at all.
Published February 10, 2015
Radius software for MIS/ERP has been at work in label and packaging printing plants for many years. Now part of EFI, Radius will significantly expand its toolkit within a new framework called EFI Enterprise Packaging Suite.
Published February 3, 2015
When a business model needs reinvigorating, the first thing to do is to revisit the fundamentals. Heidelberg acknowledges this with “Vision 2020,” a strategic redirection that places new emphasis on the non-machinery parts of its portfolio.
Published February 3, 2015
Will it surprise anyone to learn that there’s no universally accepted definition of “sustainable packaging”? Probably not, but the extent of the confusion raises eyebrows all the same. Readers of Packaging Digest discovered this when they scanned the results of a recent survey by the magazine and the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) into what’s standing between packagers and their desire to make their products more sustainable.
Published January 27, 2015
A review of recent news about sustainable packaging initiatives in the U.K. and Europe raises confidence that global strategies for managing packaging’s impact on the environment can be developed.
Published January 27, 2015
The American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) has done a nice job of consumer outreach with PaperRecycles.org, a new web site that aims at better educating the public about recovering paper and paper-based packaging for recycling.
Published January 21, 2015
We can’t improve upon a recent press release from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) about the creation of the world’s largest ball of paper—a stunt with an important point to make about recycling for packaging.
Published January 20, 2015
At Contemporary Graphic Solutions, manufacturing efficiency and process improvements are 24/7 preoccupations, especially as they apply to the company’s demanding but rewarding packaging business.
Published January 13, 2015
Mossberg & Company, a commercial printer since 1930, has built an equally successful label printing business through judicious investments in technology and scrupulous attention to quality assurance.
Published January 12, 2015
In the midst of the grief and the loathing that last week’s terrorist attacks in France stirred in all of us, there was one small scrap of comfort that touched close to home: the fact that no innocent people were killed at the print shop where the Charlie Hebdo gunmen made their final stand.
Published January 8, 2015
The end of the year always brings a flurry of state-of-the-market reports from research organizations and commentators tracking the global packaging industry. Here are pulls from some of the year-end pronouncements for 2014 that we gathered last month. They tell us that despite the unpredictability that always has to be factored into forecasts like these, 2015 is shaping up to be a promising year for the world’s packaging printers and converters.
Published December 10, 2014
There's encouraging news for producers of corrugated and paper boxes in a newly released research report which forecasts that demand for these products will increase 2.6% per year to $39.4 billion in 2018.
Published December 9, 2014
Heidelberg's profile as an equipment manufacturer is not the same as it once was, but its interest in label and packaging production is as keen as ever. This report comes from a high-level briefing that WhatTheyThink received on the company's current ambitions in the L&P equipment market.
Published December 2, 2014
This summer, members of FINAT, the international trade association for self-adhesive labeling and related industries, met in Monte Carlo for an annual congress around the general theme of "The Battle for Shelf Appeal." What emerged were an updated redefinition of labeling and a frank reassessment of the role that labels play in a greatly altered selling environment for packaged goods of all kinds.
Published November 26, 2014
Did you know—well, heck, how could anybody know?—that some people are willing to injure themselves if that's what it will take to force the last drop of product out of a container? Or that consumers would rather go to the dentist than see product they've purchased go to waste in packages they can't empty completely?
Published November 18, 2014
Continuous reinvestment and continuous reinvention sum up the strategic thinking at DWS Printing Associates, a Long Island label printing firm with deep roots in the past and a progressive view of the future.
Published November 18, 2014
What lends itself more readily to creative competition than a well designed package? The packaging industry is full of contests that showcase the high degree of graphic innovation that can be found in packages of all types and materials. Here is a short list of some of the competitions that celebrated the art of packaging design in 2014.
Published November 12, 2014
Can it be mid-November already, with preparations for the year-end holidays getting into full swing? Just ask International Paper. The Wall Street Journal recently quoted IP’s chief executive Mark S. Sutton as saying that box orders for the online retail segment have been up 15% year-over-year in 2014 and could continue rising, depending on demand. The story reports that the surge in demand for holiday packaging from both online and traditional retailers is helping to improve the performance of IP’s industrial packaging unit, which provides cardboard boxes, specialty packaging, retail displays, and paper bags.
Published November 11, 2014
Filtering what we know from what we think we know about label and packaging market trends is the objective of “Emerging Technologies for Packaging Innovation,” a newly published report from GrCI Cal Poly and Packaging World.
Published October 27, 2014
Sometimes, it’s good to step back from the speeds, feeds, and tech specs to reflect on the fact that packages and labels can be, well, downright beautiful. Eye-beguiling examples of the aesthetic gems that high-end production makes possible are all over the Internet.
Published October 21, 2014
Messe Düsseldorf, the organizer of the drupa trade fair, recently published a “drupa Global Insights Report” on the impact of the Internet on print. It’s based on responses to a survey from more than 1,000 senior decision-makers in the printing industry, including 240 who furnished personal examples of the impact in their own companies.
Published October 21, 2014
Post-processing equipment and software solutions for labels and packaging were well represented at Graph Expo/CPP, which has come into its own as a showcase for these applications.
Published October 14, 2014
The productive, colorful, versatile, and cost efficient digital systems for labels and packaging on display at Graph Expo 2014 will come to be seen as inevitable investments for every printing company that is serious about making it in the label and packaging business.
Published October 7, 2014
Among printing systems for the quick, attractive, and cost efficient production of labels and packaging, none do it better than or nearly as often as offset and flexographic presses. Conventional label and packaging production was well represented at Graph Expo/CPP 2014.
Published September 30, 2014
With a manufacturing footprint that spans more than 50 plants on three continents, Multi Packaging Solutions (MPS) stands at the crossroads of nearly every major market and technological trend in packaging production. In this interview, MPS’s Erin Willigan talks about what it takes for a diversified packaging company to remain a leader on a global scale.
Published September 23, 2014
Co-located with Graph Expo, the CPP Expo for packaging specialists does full justice to the term “show within a show” by offering a rich mix of exhibits, educational sessions, and technology investment opportunities.
Published September 23, 2014
Brian Cook, Senior Applications Development Specialist at MacDermid Printing Solutions, talks to Pat Henry about what flexo is like in the 21st century.
Published September 22, 2014
Mark Geeves, Director of Sales and Marketing for Color Logic, talks to Pat Henry about why metallic effects are important in brand packaging. Mark also discusses the ways in which Color Logic makes metallic effects more productive and easier to implement.
Published September 18, 2014
“Virtuous and healthy: those are the attributes of tomorrow’s packaging.” That proposition keynotes Packaging trends / The future of manufacturing, a white paper addressing the ethical as well as the technical mandates that packaging manufacturers must uphold in changing consumer cultures.
Published September 17, 2014
Steve Bennett of Esko Graphics discusses digital finishing and the importance of recognizing the differences between commercial finishing and digital finishing.
Published September 16, 2014
Rob Jennings, Account Executive at Global Vision, talks to Pat Henry about how their inspection systems help to keep packaging print accurate across multiple industries. They also discuss their new Proofware cloud-based brand packaging inspection suite.
Published September 15, 2014
David Luke, President of GCSF, and Pat Henry talk about the history of the organization and where things are today with their vision of consolidating scholarships through all-volunteer work without overhead costs.
Published September 12, 2014
Consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies need to plan for a “1-5-10” market in the United States during the next five years, in which digital’s current 1 percent penetration will likely expand to 5 percent and could accelerate to as much as 10 percent in short order. The source is a new report, The Digital Future: A Game Plan for Consumer Packaged Goods, prepared for the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Google, and Information Resources, Inc. (IRI).
Published September 10, 2014
Heidi Larson of Esko talks about their Brand Owner Program and how it helps their customers improve their packaging design and artwork management.
Published September 9, 2014
Corrugated board meets a wide range of consumer and non-consumer packaging requirements. Customers who appreciate the full range of functional and creative possibilities with corrugated board are turning to Axis Corrugated Container for help in migrating their packages to the substrate.
Published September 8, 2014
Alex Hamilton, Director of Business Development at Enfocus, gives us some insight into the current state of process management and automation in the industry and the packaging segment specifically.
Published September 3, 2014
Brad Leonard, Global Business Development - Cape at Esko, gets us up to speed on the Cape unit and gives Pat Henry a beginner's course on "palletization" and how Cape/Esko are able to help optimize the variables that go into it.
Published September 2, 2014
Pat Henry talks to Cori Devlin, Technical Service Consultant at DuPont Packaging Graphics, about how flexography has changed for the better.
Published August 27, 2014
Jan De Roeck, Director of Solutions Management at Esko, talks to Pat Henry about the common problems in packaging workflows and how Esko helps them solve them.
Published August 27, 2014
We Americans love our pets, and there’s no surer proof than the staggering sums we spend on feeding them. That spending drives a gravy train for packagers serving the pet food vertical.
Published August 25, 2014
At the recent PRIMEX East leadership conference by IDEAlliance, Quad/Graphics Chairman, President and CEO Joel Quadracci gave a keynote presentation in which he reviewed the state of the industry, discussed the impact of new technologies, and commented on Quad’s rise to the number two position among all U.S. printing firms.
Published August 25, 2014
John Puterbaugh, EVP and Chief Digital Officer for Nellymoser, talks to Pat Henry about mobile media and mobile marketing. John explains a philosophy called "mobile activated media".
Published August 20, 2014
If looks were everything, consumers would be over the moon about their packaging. According to packaging solutions provider MeadWestvaco, appearance is the one aspect of packages that consumers rate higher in performance than they do in importance. It's what prompts two-thirds of them to buy products off the shelf without knowing anything about them or doing any research into them.
Published August 19, 2014
Lofton Label targets its vertical markets with care and serves its customers with scrupulous attention to detail. In this company profile, CEO Mike Lane talks about how he developed the objectives and implemented the strategy that turned the business around.
Published August 19, 2014
Pat Henry talks to Wilhelm Welsch, Managing Director at The Quick Brown Fox, about the unique challenges for MIS in the packaging sector.
Published August 15, 2014
Pat Henry talks to Carsten Knudsen, CEO and President of Esko, and they talk about the success of EskoWorld 2014. The conference continues to grow and Knudsen discusses some of the reasons.
Published August 11, 2014
At IDEAlliance PRIMEXEAST Pat Henry interviewed Malcolm Netburn, Chairman of CDS Global about the pressure magazines are under and why so many new magazines are started and why they are resilient.
Published July 21, 2014
In one way or another, making packages better vehicles for brand communication underlay most of the presentations at EskoWorld 2014, a user conference that drew more than 700 people to Orlando. Esko also used the occasion to launch Suite 14, a software collection that aims to provide a common interface for all participants in the package creation workflow.
Published June 13, 2014
Last month, being in touch with the latest developments in wide-format inkjet printing for graphic arts and industrial applications meant being at FESPA Digital, a European trade expo billing itself as the “largest focused digital print exhibition worldwide this year.”
Published June 3, 2014
Eager to promote the outcomes of its integration with Océ, Canon is making a concerted marketing effort to acquaint printers worldwide with the merged product lines and ongoing progress in R&D. Lately, Canon has been concentrating the effort in Europe, where it recently made a series of major announcements about new digital printing systems.
Published April 8, 2014
Dr. Gerold Linzbach, Chairman of the Management Board and CEO of Heidelberg, talks to Pat Henry at the Digital Sneak Peek Event. They discuss the addition of digital to Heidelberg's product line up.
Published April 8, 2014
In announcing a new and in some ways strikingly different digital strategy, Heidelberg has acknowledged that it can no longer live by sheetfed sales and its own technologies alone.
Published March 4, 2014
The installation lets customers add high-volume digital web printing to the array of services they buy from DG3, one of the top providers print and visual communication products in the Northeast.
Published February 24, 2014
Some printers draw their power from peer groups: small, private circles of owners who use candor and confidentiality to solve common problems and share models for business success.
Published February 14, 2014
For an organization that’s said to have come into existence almost by accident, the National Print Owners Association (NPOA) has traveled a remarkably long way in a surprisingly short time.
Published February 7, 2014
IDEAlliance and TAGA are closest things that the industry has to “brain trusts”: trade associations that have taken upon themselves the daunting task of curating the industry’s practical intellectual capital.
Published January 31, 2014
If all politics is local, the same is true of the work done by the printing industry’s regional trade associations. The executive directors of three PIA regional affiliates discuss how they bring grass-roots insight to the universal challenges of trade association management.
Published January 21, 2014
Because they mirror the industry they serve, the printing industry’s two principal trade associations are seeing a picture they may sometimes have trouble recognizing. But, the groups say they have adapted to circumstances, learned from mistakes, and committed themselves to strategies for stability.
Published January 17, 2014
Kodak’s renewed self-confidence as a B2B company focused on imaging for business was on full display as the company grandly relisted its common stock at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on January 8.
Published November 25, 2013
Pinpointing the characteristics that make some printing companies more economically attractive than others is the short version of the mission of New Direction Partners (NDP), a consultancy specializing in mergers and acquisitions in the graphic communications industry. Some of these earmarks are classic indicators of the health of a business: cash flow, accounts receivable, EBITDA, and so on. Others, however, stem from emerging trends that NDP monitors as M&A influencers for the industry as a whole.
Published November 11, 2013
When Walter Payne entered the printing business from another career, he knew he’d want to do more than printing. Today, his company is so multi-functional that Kodak is using part of the plant as a demo facility for some of its most advanced digital production technologies.
Published October 28, 2013
Dainippon Screen wants to be a major part of the conversation about the rise of inkjet and the fall of old assumptions about print production. But, as inkjet comes to the fore, the conversation could get uncomfortably blunt for some.
Published September 19, 2013
Print has abundant possibilities as a creative medium—an attribute that deserves more attention from creatives than it sometimes gets.
Published September 13, 2013
You’ve placed your company's future into the hands of a self-styled M&A adviser. But do you truly understand what your agent’s qualifications are and where the relationship is going to take you?
Published September 10, 2013
Ah, the travails of traditional media. Who among us hasn’t stifled a groan, or at least a yawn, upon being reminded by the digerati that the path ahead for print leads nowhere else but down?
Published September 9, 2013
The centerpiece of digital production at AGS Print & Marketing Communications is an inkjet web press with a combination of capabilities that the president of the company calls “marketing’s Holy Grail” for print.
Published September 6, 2013
On Kodak’s first full day in business after emerging from bankruptcy, Antonio Perez, its chairman and CEO, detailed the company’s plans to rebuild its stature as a supplier of technology solutions in a narrower cross-section of markets than it once served.
Published August 5, 2013
Printers are self-reliant by nature. But, the pitfalls of selling a company or buying one without expert assistance should make even the most rugged individualist think twice.
Published July 22, 2013
Today, for many printers, “growth” means “growth by acquisition.” In strategizing a deal to buy another company, purchase price is not the first thing to focus on.
Published July 19, 2013
At R.E. Gilmore Corporation, the Xerox CiPress will hit the ground running in an environment where high-volume digital printing is both a specialty and an everyday routine.
Published June 19, 2013
Heidelberg won’t be at Print 13, but the company says it has other means of telling its story and exhibiting its wares. This interview casts light on Heidelberg’s new marketing strategy.
Published June 7, 2013
Everyone with a printing company to sell dreams of making a deal with full payment in cash at closing. That’s an achievable outcome for some sellers, but not for others. Two case studies provide a helpful dose of realism.
Published May 6, 2013
The profitability gap between the best-performing and the weakest printing firms is wider than ever. It reflects the difference between the “haves”—firms with effective strategies for competitive differentiation—and the “have nots,” which lack them.
Published April 29, 2013
Although it may be difficult for traditionalists to imagine, “printing” can be done in more dimensions than two. The Inside Printing 3D Conference and Expo made clear why this high-touch manufacturing process is gaining increased attention both as an emerging technology and as an investment opportunity.
Published April 12, 2013
Andy Rae, SVP of Equipment at Heidelberg, talks to Pat Henry about adding a new dimension of consultative selling and how they are helping customers improve throughput and workflow processes.
Published April 1, 2013
In one of his first official acts since his election as pontiff, Pope Francis has unveiled a radically new strategy for proselytizing to the world: he’ll carry on the work of St. Peter through an international network of printing companies he intends the Church to acquire.
Published March 26, 2013
Although the ink is barely dry on the deal that has made Impika a unit of Xerox, the acquirer believes that bringing its target into the fold will give it the major-player status in inkjet that it has been seeking.
Published March 22, 2013
Regional printing trade shows mostly are things of the past - vendors can’t justify the expense of exhibiting at these local affairs, and printers can’t find the time to attend them. All of the above may be true, but in spite of that, members of the industry still find value in the knowledge-sharing camaraderie that only face-to-face encounters can provide.
Published March 20, 2013
Kodak has had some serious losses to report lately. But, the company insists that other numbers make more sense to focus on as it drives ahead with its plan to emerge from bankruptcy.
Published March 7, 2013
If silence is golden in most of the affairs of life, in M&A transactions, it’s pure platinum. Nothing assures a better outcome for a deal—or yields a worse one if it’s violated—than maintaining a policy of tight information control while negotiations are under way.
Published February 22, 2013
Rumors were circulating earlier this week about the reported closure of Ferrostaal Equipment Solutions North America Inc., but the facts don’t bear them out. WhatTheyThink has learned that the Houston, TX based print equipment and services provider remains in operation, albeit with a new president, a smaller staff, and a reduced portfolio.
Published February 15, 2013
Sometimes, sheer embarrassment can kill a merger—the shock of suddenly having to account for issues that ought to have been dealt with earlier in the process. Privately held printing companies can be prone to the kinds of errors that embarrass sellers and thwart M&As.
Published February 11, 2013
Many in the industry are still speculating about where B2-format digital presses fit into the scope of commercial print production. Sandy Alexander is weighing the merits of B2 digital printing for itself by beta-testing one of the most advanced examples of the technology.
Published February 7, 2013
No trade show has taken more lumps lately than Ipex, the quadrennial print and graphic media expo in the UK. But its owner has declared that when Ipex opens for a six-day run in London on March 24, 2014, it will be a new show with a sharper focus and greater value for exhibitors and attendees alike.
Published January 28, 2013
Don’t look for exhibits by Eastman Kodak Co. at Print 13 in Chicago this year, at IPEX 14 in the U.K next year, or at most other graphic communications trade shows after that. In a statement published last Friday, the company announced it would significantly reduce its participation in conventional trade shows and turn to other means of engaging with its customers.
Published January 18, 2013
WhatTheyThink recently visited two German printing houses that provide an aspirational lesson for printers everywhere who want to know how far investments in production technologies can take growth-minded companies.
Published January 15, 2013
Still #1 in sheetfed, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG nevertheless is adjusting to a new place in an industry over which it used to loom larger. Its leaders outlined the company’s go-forward strategy in a year-end media briefing that hinted at significant change to come.
Published January 14, 2013
In real estate, they say, it’s all about location, location, location. In business consulting, the triple crown is perspective, perspective, perspective. The most recent addition to the consulting team at New Direction Partners brings a long and multi-angled view of the printing industry to his new role as an architect of mergers and acquisitions within it.
Published November 26, 2012
As it has at previous stages of its effort to put its troubles behind it, Kodak has reached out to the trade media with another update on the progress it claims to be making toward orderly emergence from bankruptcy. We spoke recently with Chris Payne, Kodak’s vice president - marketing, business to business, about the latest developments and about Kodak’s long-term plan to renew itself as a provider of graphic production technologies.
Published November 6, 2012
Frank Steenburgh says one thing his long experience as a business-builder has taught him is that growing revenues and profit will always be more fun and rewarding than cutting costs. Read why.
Published November 2, 2012
No small part of the $50 billion economic loss being attributed to storm Sandy will come from business interruptions suffered by printing firms throughout the tristate metro region. Wherever the damage was worst, the toll taken on these highly vulnerable manufacturing operations was highest. Many remain out of commission, their electrical power gone, their communications severed, their work piling up, and their employees stranded at home with gas gauges pointing at empty.
Published October 30, 2012
AlphaGraphics franchise owners came en masse to Graph Expo 2012, where Art Coley, the president of the network, briefed WhatTheyThink on steps taken to revitalize the business centers and the company as whole.
Published October 23, 2012
At Graph Expo, both presented status reports: Kodak, on continuing to manage its emergence from bankruptcy; Xerox, on maintaining its commitment to graphics as the company shifts increasingly towards services.
Published October 22, 2012
For printers seeking to acquire another company or to be acquired by one, the options are straightforward. Where does your business fit in the M&A planning matrix?
Published October 16, 2012
Tom Parrot, President of Excell Color Graphics talks to Pat Henry about the origins of the company that started as a prepress shop, the evolution of the business, and the value in coming to Graph Expo.
Published October 15, 2012
Patrick Henry talks with Paul Mongoven, President of TPM Graphics, about their business and why they are thriving during tough times for the industry. Paul also talks about the importance of attending Graph Expo and what he gets from it.
Published October 12, 2012
Patrick Henry speaks with Heidelberg Senior Vice President Uli Koehler about their service organization, how they use it to support their customers, as well as details on how the market changes have impacted service operations.
Published October 11, 2012
Nobody else could have made as persuasive a case for an as-yet unproven technology as Benny Landa did at Graph Expo when he captivated a crowd with his vision of nanographic printing.
Published October 10, 2012
Kodak President of Graphics, Entertainment, and Commercial Film talks to Pat Henry about his relatively new division and gets his impressions of Graph Expo 2012.
Published October 10, 2012
If you listen closely, you can hear the new, quieter sound of Graph Expo. It's easier on the ears, and it makes for a much improved trade show experience.
Published September 27, 2012
Pat Henry interviews HP's Worldwide Marketing & Strategy VP for Graphic Solutions Business Sumeer Chandra, who talks about the reorganization of the graphics business and the strategy moving forward. Sumeer also gives a good overview of the Atlanta Experience Center.
Published September 18, 2012
Given present trends, the industry could be dominated by a relative handful of firms in a few years. Some companies can grow profitably into this new landscape. Others can make a safe exit before it fully unfolds. Each outcome demands a strategy-now.
Published August 24, 2012
Recent news from HP has been turbulent, raising questions about the status of the company’s graphics business. Some light was shed last week at a customer event at HP’s Graphic Arts Experience Center.
Published August 14, 2012
A pent-up eagerness for deals makes it all the more important for those venturing back into the M&A marketplace as sellers to be clear about why they should sell—and why buyers should want to acquire them.
Published July 30, 2012
It may be possible to run a printing company without a formal plan, but buying or selling a printing company will be very difficult to bring off successfully without the help of a written roadmap. An acquisition plan is a vital navigation aid that guides the process and certifies the desirability of the deal.
Published July 3, 2012
With its microprocessors, relays, sensors, and software, a modern printing press is a marvel at squeezing time and cost out of production runs. But, one maker of press cleaning accessories contends that these complex systems can still get a big helping hand in a key press function from a simple but strategically placed strip of durable plastic.
Published July 3, 2012
Published June 28, 2012
The graphic communications industry continues to struggle with declining sales, squeezed profit margins, restricted access to capital, and business pressures of every imaginable kind. But, none of that has dampened the enthusiasm of those who support the Prism Awards, a high-profile achievement recognition program that rings with optimism every year under the auspices of New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies (SCPS).
Published June 12, 2012
Some think that general commercial printing companies aren’t worthy targets for acquisition by other printing firms. That’s a major misperception, say the M&A experts of NDP.
Published June 8, 2012
This time, instead of a long-form review of product announcements at drupa 2012, here are the highlights in a format that many of us are getting accustomed to: Tweetable bursts of 140 characters or less.
Published May 21, 2012
“We need to be in the outcome business, not the output business,” said a printing executive at drupa. “They trust you,” said a senior spokesman for a vendor about the underlying strength of printer-customer relationships. Both presentations were rich in insights about the state of print markets and the prospects that printers will discover in them.
Published May 15, 2012
Inking the merger of two printing companies is the formality that signals the beginning of the hard part: implementation. Methodical planning and careful communication can go a long way toward smoothing the transition.
Published May 14, 2012
As would be expected during an event of this kind, most of the media briefings at drupa were focused on product announcements and technology introductions. From time to time, though, speakers put the salesmanship aside and offered broader commentary on industry trends and print market conditions.
Published May 9, 2012
It's better to label drupa 2012 “the _______ drupa” with the prefix of your choice, so try dipping into the Xerox “drupa visualizer.” This live infographic lets Xerox track and share the top trends being discussed in relation to drupa across the Twitterverse.
Published May 8, 2012
What were the principal take-aways from drupa 2012? What was new and exciting in the exhibit halls? Where is the industry headed? We’re sifting our notebooks for the answers. In the meantime, here are some broad observations about the character and “feel” of the show.
Published May 8, 2012
Bernhard Schreier, CEO of Heidelberg and President of drupa 2012 answers Pat Henry's questions about the concepts and planning of this mammoth show in Düsseldorf, Germany.
Published May 8, 2012
Regular readers of WhatTheyThink need no reminder of who Andy Tribute is or of how much value he has added to the WhatTheyThink editorial space. Admirers of his writing probably will not be surprised to learn that his peers hold him in as much personal affection as they do in professional esteem.
Published May 2, 2012
Much of the activity at KBA’s stand in Hall 16 at drupa will center upon packaging, an application in which the company has always claimed a competitive edge. At drupa, KBA will reassert the claim with systems it describes as engineered to meet today’s highest-priority requirements in packaging production.
Published April 26, 2012
KBA’s venture into digital printing with its new RotaJET 76 inkjet web press has origins in a market that the company knows well: high-volume offset web production.
Published April 23, 2012
When Xerox exhibits at drupa, its presence won’t be limited to stand A62 in hall 8b. Throughout the show, the company intends to maintain an equally high profile in the realm of social media as it attempts to viralize not just its own drupa experience but the pulse and the intelligence of the event as a whole.
Published April 16, 2012
Every four years, the international printing community gathers at drupa and asks itself a question: How are we doing? The Koenig & Bauer Group (KBA) believes that if every vendor’s experience over the last few years had been as positive as its own, the collective answer would have to be: Never better.
Published April 16, 2012
It would be impossible to speak for very long about the evolution of digital printing without bringing Frank Steenburgh’s name into the conversation.
Published March 19, 2012
Pat Henry interviews Helmut J. (John) Dangelmaier about PrintCity's initiatives for drupa.
Published March 12, 2012
Pat Henry sits down with Roland Stasiczek, Director of Marketing, Continuous Feed Printers, Océ Printing Systems to discuss the Océ briefing presented in Munich.
Published March 12, 2012
Ever since he founded Geographics in 1976, Norvin Hagan hasn’t tried to purchase another company—until now. Read why he’s ready to complement organic growth with the kind that comes from a well planned and executed acquisition.
Published March 5, 2012
Pat Henry, at the recent Print City Alliance pre-drupa event in Munich, grabs Executive Vice President of Sales & Service Peter Kuisle and asks him to recap the manroland web systems announcement.
Published February 28, 2012
By exhibiting as a group at drupa 2012, the members of the PrintCity Alliance hope to present a continuum of solutions that visitors will find well adapted to the new realities of the print marketplace. Previews of some of their show offerings are here.
Published February 21, 2012
At drupa 2012, the PrintCity Alliance will emphasize and promote the future of print from its usual location on the Messe Düsseldorf fairgrounds. Last week, some of its members gave a preview of what awaits visitors to Hall 6.
Published February 6, 2012
No matter what is happening to other print industry metrics, M&As are trending up. This can be to the advantage of many printing companies seeking growth or a path to staying in operation.
Published January 30, 2012
There’s a notable gap between consumers’ understanding of QR codes and their willingness to use them. A company called SpyderLynk has a solution aimed at helping image-based mobile marketing to fulfill the potential that has eluded QR codes.
Published January 20, 2012
Kodak will continue to advance its graphic communications business as it tries to emerge from bankruptcy, treating its digital printing, plate, and workflow operations as keys to survival and future success.
Published January 16, 2012
Technical innovation and customer care are the main ingredients in the recipe for growth at Cathedral Corporation, which now aims to accelerate its expansion with the well-planned acquisition of another printing firm. President and CEO Marianne Gaige describes her objectives in this interview.
Published December 9, 2011
Patrick Henry and President of Heidelberg Harald Weimer discuss his background with the company and his recent appointment as incoming president of Heidelberg.
Published October 24, 2011
Even experienced fishermen know that there are times when they shouldn’t cast a fly without the help of a fishing guide. A guide knows where the best fishing holes are and how to land the prize fish in them. It’s much the same with mergers and acquisitions in the printing industry. The best catches are made when the principals rely on the skills of deal-savvy M&A advisors.
Published October 21, 2011
The commercial dispute between Kodak and Collins Ink Corporation has escalated into a legal wrangle with Kodak’s filing of a lawsuit that charges the inkjet ink manufacturer with breach of contract.
Published October 14, 2011
With each vowing that customers won’t be harmed as a result of their estrangement, Kodak and Collins Ink Corporation have come to the abrupt end of a 10-year deal whereby the latter supplied the former with inkjet inks for Versamark digital presses.
Published October 10, 2011
As everyone knows, the recession has made business financing hard to come by. In this two-part “Cup O Joe,” lenders to the printing industry report that loan products are available and discuss how printers can obtain them.
Published September 30, 2011
This week, Amazon unveiled four aggressively priced content delivery devices: one, a multimedia tablet aimed squarely at Apple's market-dominating iPad; the other three, the latest iterations of Amazon's popular Kindle e-reader.
Published September 28, 2011
Whatever may be happening to the demand for print, Graph Expo 2011 made one thing abundantly clear: never before have printers had as many options as they now possess for adding beauty, charisma, and value to a piece of paper.
Published September 23, 2011
Whatever may be happening to the demand for print, Graph Expo 2011 made one thing abundantly clear: never before have printers had as many options as they now possess for adding beauty, charisma, and value to a piece of paper.
Published September 13, 2011
"Convergence" in the graphic communications industry can mean many things, but at Graph Expo, it describes what happens when vendors pool their R&D resources to create production solutions more formidable than anything they could have devised by themselves.
Published September 12, 2011
Opening-day remarks at Graph Expo by Bernhard Schreier captured the tone of the event and offered a restrained but still optimistic outlook for global print markets.
Published August 22, 2011
As everyone knows, the recession has made business financing hard to come by. In this two-part "Cup O Joe," lenders to the printing industry report that loan products are available and discuss how printers can obtain them.
Published August 11, 2011
Kodak's NexPress SX digital color production platform is a reminder that while inkjet systems have tended to snare most of the attention from the graphic arts trade media of late, there’s still plenty of technical innovation to write about on the toner-based side as well.
Published August 9, 2011
The new Espresso Book Machine (EBM) at McNally Jackson Books is an experiment in non-traditional publishing that just might represent the start of a new paradigm for bringing books to market, one independent bookseller and one print-on-demand title at a time.
Published July 29, 2011
PrintCity Alliance is running an online survey that invites print fans to count (and measure) the ways they love the medium and its role in the graphic communications mix.
Published July 22, 2011
Have you heard about Fiverr, “The place for people to share things they’re willing to do for $5”? If you’ve ever wondered what the five-dollar phrase “digital disintermediation” really means, Fiverr is a cyber bazaar full of answers.
Published July 19, 2011
Some M&A transactions in the printing industry fall apart before they reach the signing stage. Other deals, however, come undone after the ink is dry, and often for reasons that should have been obvious all along. New Direction Partners looks at how to stay out of the latter trap.
Published July 13, 2011
The recent Independence Day holiday weekend passed largely without notice of the 125th anniversary of the introduction of the Linotype Type Casting Machine on July 3, 1886. But awareness of this amazing device could rise with the upcoming release of Linotype: the Film.
Published July 6, 2011
On June 30, Mercury Print Productions cut the red ribbon on a Kodak PROSPER 5000XL digital color inkjet press that had already printed in excess of 20 million impressions and was said to be well on its way to producing many millions more.
Published June 24, 2011
Twenty-nine students have received a total of $40,000 in grants from the Graphic Communications Scholarship Award and Career Advancement Foundation, an organization that has disbursed nearly $300,000 for graphics education since 2002.
Published June 21, 2011
The New York University (NYU) Prism Award Luncheon celebrated its 25th anniversary today by conferring the honor for which it is named upon Thomas J. Quinlan III, president and CEO of R.R. Donnelley and Sons Company. Also honored was Joseph P. Truncale, president and CEO of the National Association for Printing Leadership (NAPL), who was named the recipient of the 2011 Alumni Award.
Published June 21, 2011
M&A transactions sometimes fall through. Poor judgment, misinformation, adverse business developments, and personal antagonisms can drive principals apart despite the mutual advantages of deals that should bring them together. This two-part article examines how and why they fail.
Published June 16, 2011
“My middle name is Franklin, so I had to become a printer.” And so Dave Moody did, honoring a family heritage and perpetuating the traditional arts of printing on vintage but very busy letterpress equipment.
Published June 10, 2011
Canon brought its “Success with Print” educational series to New York City on June 7. The session was one stop on a 15-city tour aimed at helping printers locate new growth and profitability in a market where these opportunities are becoming increasingly hard to find.
Published June 4, 2011
On June 2 in New York City, Bob Sacks, a.k.a. “BoSacks,” became the 114th recipient of the Gamma Gold Key Award. Also honored for exceptional support of education were Annette Wolf Bensen and Heidelberg USA.
Published June 1, 2011
Supporters of New York City’s historic Bowne & Co. Stationers are rallying to save it, but against what appear to be very long odds. Its parent organization has closed the storefront at 211 Water Street, stunning fans of the printing office and its extensive collections of antique types, type specimen books, and equipment.
Published May 11, 2011
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to brief a group of visiting Chinese publishers and printers on the state of the industry as experienced by their counterparts in the U.S. Our discussion highlighted the similarities that link China’s and America’s publishing sectors amidst profound market shifts in both countries. It also illuminated a few notable differences that distinguish our industry’s attitude toward change from theirs.
Published May 6, 2011
“Heavy metal” is the printing industry’s affectionate term for presses. It also denotes the material that accounts for 95% of what a conventional printing machine is made of. Now, a sculptor has unconventionally added bamboo, cork, oak, and rope to the equation—and the result serves equally well as an art object and as a functioning example of the thing it represents.
Published April 28, 2011
It was to have been a new deal for exhibitors at Graph Expo, Print, and scores of other trade shows at Chicago’s McCormick Place: a set of legislative reforms aimed at making it easier and less expensive to produce events at the lakeside expo and convention center. But, a recent ruling by a federal judge has overturned some of those changes and may keep them from being retained.
Published April 26, 2011
We came across this post about printing plant tours while researching something else. The writer is a consultant who sells branding, marketing, and design services, and he’s clearly somebody who’s spent a lot of time inside printing plants.
Published April 21, 2011
Students in the department of Advertising Design and Graphic Arts (ADGA) at New York City College of Technology (NYCCT) saw high-end digital printing in action on a recent field trip to Duggal Visual Solutions in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Published April 21, 2011
A successful M&A transaction is the sum of many carefully fashioned parts. This month, New Direction Partners and Margolis Becker delve into the details with comments on how deals can be influenced by client concentration; plant ownership; non-compete agreements with salespeople; acquired management teams; post-acquisition price increases; and personally guaranteed debt.
Published April 13, 2011
Did you know that seven of the top 25 newspapers in the United States are now owned by hedge funds? Facts like this abound in The State of the News Media 2011, recently released by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. It’s must reading for anyone trying to make sense of what digital technologies are doing to the market for mass communications.
Published April 8, 2011
Five printers representing nearly half the installed base of KBA Rapida 205s in the U.S. say that the performance of this 59.5" x 81" press is as impressive as sheet size. They speak assuredly of the big improvements that the industry’s biggest press has made, or is fully expected to make, to the foundations of their businesses.
Published April 7, 2011
Today, thanks to digital production technologies, anyone can publish a book, and the same goes for magazines. How mainstream book and magazine publishers are confronting new business models in which nearly anything (and anyone) goes was a thread running through many of the presentations at this week’s Publishing Business Conference & Expo in New York City.
Published April 7, 2011
The smallest format it can print is a bigger piece of paper than most sheetfed plants have ever handled. It’s hard to avoid superlatives when describing KBA’s 59.5" x 81" Rapida 205, the world’s largest sheetfed offset press—especially when five printers representing nearly half of its installed base in the U.S. say that its performance is every bit as impressive as its sheet size.
Published April 5, 2011
Delivering worthy content to receptive audiences remains a cornerstone concept in the publishing industry, but it’s almost the only certainty left. Keynote speakers at this week’s Publishing Business Conference & Expo in New York City tried to identify additional strategies for staying relevant, compelling, and profitable in a game where digital alternatives to the older models write new rules every day.
Published April 1, 2011
In typically methodical fashion, Heidelberg has embraced the social media. Through these channels, grouped for convenient access here, the graphic equipment manufacturer hopes to enrich its dialogue with the marketplace by getting a better handle on what Heidelberg customers are saying to each other about its products and services.
Published March 28, 2011
Congratulations to the winners, and a tip of the hat to their host. Two weeks ago, Heidelberg turned its Kennesaw, GA, Technology Center into a venue for a statewide competition in SkillsUSA’s search for the nation’s rising young stars in graphic communications and advertising design.
Published March 16, 2011
"What's my company worth to a buyer?" Easy to ask, but not so easy to answer correctly. This month, New Direction Partners and Margolis Becker explain the multiple-of-EBITDA formula that's used to determine pricing in many conventional acquisitions. They also discuss asset-based valuation for tuck-ins and note the commission structures that sellers can expect to receive in M&As of this type.
Published March 7, 2011
There’s not much crossover between the parallel universes of print and the social media, but Benjamin Lotan is out to change that—once Facebook poster at a time. He’s the creator and the proprietor of The Social Printshop, an online service that lets habitués of Facebook and other social networking sites celebrate their relationships in hard-copy form.
Published February 26, 2011
If a sturdily-built iron letterpress is carefully maintained and properly operated, shouldn’t it last forever? Well, forever is a long time. But so is five decades, the span of years across which Florida printer Buddy West has operated the same Original Heidelberg letterpress at Panama City Publishing Co. in that town's St. Andrews district.
Published February 16, 2011
The partners at New Direction Partners join financial management firm Margolis Becker for the monthly Cup O Joe, a conference call with printers on a selected topic. With the help of NDP partners Peter Schaefer and Jim Russell, Cup O Joe tackled the topic “Acquiring A Company from an Owner’s Perspective.” Some excerpts are presented here.
Published February 11, 2011
Nobody ever called QR codes pretty to look at. But then, nobody has taken QR codes to heart in quite the same way as Chunghwa Post, the postal system of the Republic of China (Taiwan). For Valentine’s Day, the agency has turned the stark black-and-white of these print-leveraging symbols into a palette of pastels with an underlying message of love—a sentiment that’s welcome in the mailbox on any day of the year.
Published February 8, 2011
“In our DNA” is a bit of corporate-speak that we’re all probably tired of hearing, but every now and then, it really does express the depth of a company’s commitment to a principle or a cause that it takes seriously. Heidelberg, for one, would be fully entitled to use the phrase to describe its support for industry education—just ask the Graphic Communication Institute (GrCI) at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly).
Published February 7, 2011
Last year Congress deliberated a bill that would have significantly increased penalties for workplace safety violations uncovered by OSHA. To the relief of business advocacy groups, the bill didn’t become law, but this doesn’t mean that the agency hasn’t been stepping up its efforts against unsafe workplaces in other ways.
Published February 4, 2011
The U.S. printing industry has been without commercially produced, regionalized trade directories since the Graphic Arts Blue Books ceased publication in print last year. But, printers gazing wistfully at the empty space on the shelf where the old Blue Books used to go should dust off that space and keep it open—a new set of hard-copy purchasing guides is on its way from north of the border.
Published January 31, 2011
As it stages its re-entry into the digital print equipment market, Heidelberg is out to make high-end digital presses from other suppliers “irrelevant.” That, at least, is the word used and the conclusion reached by the UK trade publication PrintWeek in a recent report on Heidelberg’s emerging digital strategy.
Published January 24, 2011
Knowing when to do the deal is probably the trickiest judgment call in any merger of printing companies. Correct timing is a must for both parties, but choosing the right moment to step forward into the M&A marketplace rests with the seller. It’s a decision that calls for introspective as well as strategic thinking.
Published January 14, 2011
When did the market for printing’s most time-honored product—the book—become so difficult to read? A cross-section of publishing experts tried to sort out the issues in a panel discussion earlier this week at the New York Public Library, courtesy of Kodak.
Published January 10, 2011
Below is the text of a press release issued last week by the U.S. Postal Service. It is headed, "Postmaster General Restructures U.S. Postal Service/Layers Eliminated, Officer Ranks Reduced." As an ordinary user of USPS services, I have two questions about what I'm reading.
Published January 7, 2011
Imagine the cloud-based equivalent of a consumer’s physical mailbox—a virtual receptacle where the user can accumulate and manage bills, statements, coupons, catalogs, and almost anything else he or she is accustomed to receiving from business mailers, but in purely digital form. It soon will be a reality. Pitney Bowes calls it Volly.
Published January 3, 2011
Reborn for the new year is Virtual Press Clips, our periodic roundup of news items about printing companies in the general media. The object is to show that print firms continue to be esteemed and respected as good business neighbors by their hometown newspapers and local other media outlets.
Published December 27, 2010
The production of branded content—media created by businesses for marketing and customer relations—is a $47.2 billion industry in the U.S., and print still accounts for the largest share of the spend. Marketers believe in it, recipients trust it, and that spells sheer “contentment” all around.
Published December 20, 2010
In the time-honored tradition of ending the present year with resolutions for improvement in the year to come, New Direction Partners offers guidance for print company owners who may find themselves on one side or the other of an M&A transaction in 2011.
Published December 16, 2010
In the minds of media professionals whose the icon is the iPad, how much attention can print and other traditional channels expect to command? Speakers at this high-level event indicated that no matter what media are used, the quality of the content is what spells the difference between virality and oblivion for the brand message.
Published December 3, 2010
New Direction Partners has taken its M&A consulting on the road in a series of presentations. In these briefings, NDP offers an overview of the business climate for mergers and acquisitions, along with practical advice for owners pondering the next step in the life cycles of their companies.
Published November 30, 2010
Believing that there’s room in the 40" market for an addition to its Speedmaster line, Heidelberg rolled out the Speedmaster CX 102 in a customer event at its U.S. headquarters earlier this month. This newly engineered machine is said to transfer the best features of Heidelberg’s XL-series presses to the 102 format, its most successful product category.
Published November 23, 2010
By bringing just one offset press to Graph Expo 2010, it accounted for one-sixth of all offset presses at the show and one-third of the conventional (non-DI) printing machines on the floor of McCormick Place. That would be an unusual distinction for any exhibitor of press equipment, but it seems to have worked out well for Gronhi Graphics International, the U.S. arm of a Chinese vendor seeking a reputation and a toehold in the American market.
Published November 12, 2010
The Graphic Arts Show Company (GASC) events were due to reach an inflection point, and it seems clear that at Graph Expo 2010, they reached one from which there will be no turning back. The break in the connection between showing heavy printing equipment and selling it made Graph Expo 2010 a watershed event. No longer do press manufacturers makers need elaborate displays of machinery at the GASC shows in order to achieve the marketing impact they desire.
Published November 2, 2010
How do you know that business you just bought is going to keep earning what you’ve been promised? What questions should you be asking, what contingency plans should you be building, and what hang-ups should you be looking out for? The partners at New Direction Partners have some answers for us.
Published October 19, 2010
As Graph Expo made abundantly clear, there’s no longer any segment of the industry that can’t be addressed by digital solutions that will work as least as well as conventional lithography, at least in shorter runs. The industry’s embrace of digital production is now complete, and all that’s left to debate is how long it will take the pockets of resistance to get on board or go away.
Published October 6, 2010
We’ll be happy to stand corrected if our count is wrong, but, after prowling the show floor of Graph Expo 2010 in search of lithographic printing equipment, we came up with only four fully assembled offset presses. Where did the heavy iron go? That’s not all that makes this year’s event seem a bit eerie when contrasted with the Graph Expo and Print shows of years past.
Published October 3, 2010
Published September 28, 2010
What is your printing company worth? Emotionally speaking, everything. But, owners contemplating the sale of their companies have to answer this tough question in an objective and a financially realistic way. Here are three common approaches to business valuation.
Published September 24, 2010
HP is convinced that locked inside smart phones, tablets, and other web-connected devices are billions of pages yearning to be printed. On September 20, HP’s Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) showcased its latest solutions for liberating personal and business printing at an “innovation summit” in New York City.
Published September 14, 2010
Canon Expo was the first opportunity since their recent merger for Canon and Océ to show their new team face. Patrick Henry was there to report back on just how well the two companies are working together and leveraging each other's strengths.
Published September 3, 2010
The New Jersey towns of Summit and New Providence are among the most upscale in the state. Household incomes are high, home prices remain strong, and local amenities are first-class. Nevertheless, some residents of these affluent communities are going hungry—an inequity that the area’s AlphaGraphics franchise is working to eliminate.
Published August 27, 2010
The picture above was taken not in a printing museum but in the letterpress department of Taylor Corporation’s Tatex subsidiary in Waco, TX. Somewhere in the room is what’s believed to be the oldest Heidelberg press still in operation in the U.S.
Published August 26, 2010
“On the whole, I would rather be in Philadelphia.” It’s what W.C. Fields was rumored (falsely) to have chosen as the inscription on his gravestone. For present-day bloggers in the City of Brotherly Love who remember it, the line carries as much irony as any of the late comedian’s celebrated wisecracks. That’s because the city of Philadelphia wants them to pay what has been incorrectly labeled a “blogging tax”—a development reported by Philadelphia Citypaper last week.
Published August 24, 2010
A Printing Office, WhatTheyThink’s blog for small to medium printers, is now serving this audience under the auspices of PrintCEO. Patrick Henry, managing editor of A Printing Office, will continue to post news and commentary for this segment at PrintCEO, which contains a complete archive of material previously published at A Printing Office.
Published August 24, 2010
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. By now, the economy should have picked up, printers’ prospects should have improved, and the banks should have responded by letting some sunlight into their vaults when borrowers from the industry came calling. What happened? Although the nation’s general banking crisis may be over, says Tom Williams, partner, New Direction Partners, there’s been little improvement in the availability of credit for business and equipment financing.
Published August 18, 2010
Sales of a children’s book, The Adventures of Snooky Under the Sea, raise money in the fight against sarcoma, a deadly form of cancer. But the title made news in a curious way when another “Snooki” tried to register her moniker as a trademark for printed matter and books.
Published August 10, 2010
Running a small print services company is tough. Running for high public office against a richer opponent is tougher. Now imagine trying to do both under pressure from a civil lawsuit by an unhappy business partner.
That, according to press reports, is the can of worms confronting Dave Westlake, a co-owner of High IQ in Watertown, WI, and a Republican candidate in Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate primary election next month.
Published August 6, 2010
Joel Templin, Craig MacLean, and Katie Jain, founding partners, JAQK Cellars; David Dees, national sales manager.
Last night, in a tasting at a wine boutique on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the creators of a new line of premium wines from the Napa Valley made their first bid for attention in the New York metro market. Those who dropped by to sample—including one lady with a live lobster in her tote bag—were intrigued not just by the complexities of the eight varietals on offer, but by the distinctive appearance of their gambling-themed bottles.
Tumbling dice. Suits of cards. Points from a roulette wheel. An embedded poker chip. Tightly executed color images on offset-printed paper labels and screen-printed wraps. Meet JAQK Cellars, a brand that comes to market with an exceptional pedigree in graphic design and package printing.
Published August 5, 2010
New York State’s budget was 125 days late when it finally was passed on Tuesday, but it contained something that printers throughout the state considered well worth waiting for: their continued exemption from the sales and use tax on printed and mailed promotional materials. Printing Industries Alliance (PIA) said that preservation of the exemption is a major victory for printers in New York State. In a message to his members, Timothy Freeman, president of PIA, called the exemption “critical for our industry. It is a significant competitive advantage for New York State printers.”
Published August 4, 2010
Workers of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but your fear of getting printer’s ink on your jeans.
As a revolutionary slogan, it probably wouldn’t rouse the masses to the barricades, but Levi Strauss & Co. is hoping that the universal appeal of ink on paper will draw visitors to the craft print shop it has set up in San Francisco. A temporary installation, the shop is part of a marketing campaign through which the apparel maker aims to demonstrate solidarity with America’s working people.
Published July 30, 2010
(detail from original art)
We’re only passing this along, folks.
Headbäng, a music blog for heavy metal fans, reports that Watain, a black metal band from Sweden, recently commissioned the printing of a poster in human blood.
The job was perpetrated—uh, we mean produced—by Metastazis, a photography and graphic design firm started in Paris and currently based in New York City.
Published July 30, 2010
We hear it constantly: the industry won't return to normal until printers start investing in their businesses again. But at one printing company in New Jersey, they never got the memo about capital investment being on hold. Sandy Alexander of Clifton isn't waiting for economists to tell it that the time finally is right to add capacity and services. The company - with a staff of 230, one of the largest printing employers in the state - has already spent $7 million on new production machinery this year, and its quest to equip itself for growth isn't over yet.
Published July 27, 2010
The fashion designer Calvin Klein is famous—or notorious—for advertising that pushes the limits of public taste with highly eroticized imagery. But, in terms of marketing effectiveness, the strategy has its limitations.
Last year, the company raised eyebrows in the SoHo district of Manhattan with a five-story building poster depicting four young, semi-undressed models striking poses that struck some as orgiastic. The shock value was obvious, but, as with all media novelties, the shock eventually wore off. What to do for an encore in a jaded media market that Calvin Klein is largely responsible for jading in the first place?
Published July 23, 2010
The Virginian-Pilot has reported that Shorewood Packaging intends to close its gravure printing operation in Newport News, VA, in October. The closure will shutter the plant and result in the loss of 35 jobs.
Published July 21, 2010
When he isn’t pitching horseshoes with deadlier accuracy than probably anyone else in the world, Alan Francis works for a printing company. Francis is the subject of a front-page profile in the print edition of today’s New York Times.
Published July 20, 2010
A friend who dropped a chunk of my writing into IWriteLike tells me that the answer is H.G. Wells (1866-1946). The good news is that I correspond stylistically with an author of the 20th century—I wasn’t sure that I was this far along on the timeline of the English language. The fantastic news is that the answer wasn’t Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), poet, playwright, novelist, and inspirer of the famous Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.
Published July 20, 2010
In Part 1 of this primer on evaluating acquisition targets, Paul Reilly and Peter Schaefer of New Direction Partners reviewed the questions a prospective buyer should ask about the things that make the seller's company productive: its plant, its equipment, and the state of its relations with employees. Their discussion continues with advice for assessing the outcomes of that productivity: the quality of the financial results; the condition of the customer base; and the nature of the relationships that the seller has with its suppliers.
Published July 19, 2010
“This man is an author. He writes stories. He has just finished a story. He thinks many people will like to read it. So, he must have the story made into a book. “Let’s see how the book is made.”
Published July 13, 2010
Printers in New York State are a step closer to seeing their legislature preserve a sales tax exemption that would have been extremely costly for them to lose. Tim Freeman, president of Printing Industries Alliance, reported the progress to his members yesterday:
Published July 12, 2010
A much-quoted survey of small business owners said that the economic confidence felt by this segment leveled off in June to halt a two-month rise. The dip, although not large, reflected increased unease about the near-term outlook for smaller firms.
Published July 7, 2010
Eleven employees of Boston’s municipal printing department headed into the Fourth of July weekend with the glum knowledge that they would not be returning to work this week. Their jobs were taken away by the city’s decision to close the 113-year-old plant and give the work to private-sector printers.
Published July 6, 2010
The title of the dialogue was “Keeping America Informed 3.0: How Electronic Media, Digital Printing, and Sustainability Imperatives Will Change the Way the World Communicates.” Its main purpose, though, could be summed up in fewer words: to recap the tenure of Robert C. Tapella as the 25th Public Printer of the United States.
Published June 30, 2010
In our rush to embrace iPads, Kindles, and other revolutionary electronic book readers, it’s easy to forget that these devices can seem anything but revolutionary to those who can’t see well enough to discern what’s on their screens. But, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education haven’t forgotten the exclusions that e-readers can cause when they are used as learning tools in classrooms where sight-impaired students are striving to keep up.
Published June 28, 2010
Twenty-five college and college-bound students from the New York City metro area will find the high cost of higher education a bit easier to bear thanks to the cash grants they received on June 24 from the Graphic Communications Scholarship Award and Career Advancement Foundation (GCSF).
Published June 28, 2010
Published June 26, 2010
On June 24th, The Print Council brought the sixth edition of its “Print Delivers” series to New York City in a “lunch and learn” program hosted by Sappi Fine Papers North America. The session, presented to more than 200 people at the Art Directors Club in midtown Manhattan, reiterated the Council’s message about the place of print in the marketing mix and its unique abilities to influence consumer behavior.
Published June 25, 2010
If you’re acquiring a company, you better do your due diligence. But what does that involve? Patrick Henry spoke to two M&A experts to get the lowdown on how to ask the right questions. This is the first of a two part series; this one deals with inspecting the facilities and determining what kind of team you’re inheriting.
Published June 21, 2010
The post about OSHA fines hanging over a Pennsylvania printer drew some sharp comments about safety practices in the printing industry. One question was especially provocative: is the recession-battered printing industry skimping on safety by paying less attention than it once did to protecting life and limb on the job? The data we do have indicate that while it’s still quite possible to get hurt or even killed in a printing plant, print firms offer workers a safer environment than private-sector industry as a whole. What’s more, the numbers on safety in printing and related services have been improving steadily for years.
Published June 17, 2010
On Tuesday, the Wayne Independent of Honesdale, PA, reported that a local printer was facing fines of $107,100 for alleged violations of OSHA safety rules. Readers are having none of it. Online comments are alike in finding more fault with OSHA than with the printer. Readers also bemoan the loss of U.S. business to China in the same breath as they lambast excessive regulation in this country.
Published June 16, 2010
Going for an award in IAPHC's International Gallery of Excellence remains one of the simplest and most cost-effective promotional efforts a printing company can make. Now in its 36th year, the competition is easy to enter, open to everybody, and guaranteed to boost the pride of all who capture one of its Gold, Silver, or Bronze trophies.
Published June 14, 2010
You may have heard about The Green Box: a pizza carton with a lid that turns into serving plates and a tray that folds up to make a container for storing leftover slices in the fridge. Another clever idea in the same eco-friendly vein is the Globe Guard Reusable Box from Salazar Packaging.
Published June 14, 2010
Published June 10, 2010
The Prism Awards, New York University’s annual salute to leadership in graphic communications, were presented today to David J. Shea, chairman and CEO, Bowne & Co., and John Tenwinkel, a 2008 graduate of the M.A. program in Graphic Communications Management and Technology at NYU’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies (SCPS). The award luncheon, a fundraising event on behalf of the M.A. program, took place at Gotham Hall in Manhattan with about 400 people attending.
Published June 8, 2010
Unless they burn to the ground, mangle a worker in a press, or employ someone who gets busted for embezzlement, printing companies don’t attract much attention in the mainstream media. It’s rare that hometown newspapers portray them simply for what they are—local businesses striving to protect jobs and profits from all of the forces that seem to be conspiring against jobs and profits in the printing industry these days. A praiseworthy exception is this profile of Missouri printer Kelly Press in the Columbia Daily Tribune.
Published June 7, 2010
Everything in life is a work in progress, including the reformation of labor practices at expo centers. Legislation overhauling work rules at McCormick Place is sweeping, but don’t expect implementation all at once.
Published June 4, 2010
Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve System, isn’t happy with the present pace of lending to America’s small businesses. He said so yesterday in remarks at a meeting on small business issues at the Chicago Fed’s branch in Detroit.
Published June 1, 2010
Michael R. Cunningham and Florence Jackson have joined the long list of those recognized for exceptional service to education with one of the industry’s most prestigious honors. At a ceremony in New York City last week, Cunningham and Jackson became the 112th and 113th recipients of the Gamma Gold Key award, a tribute bestowed annually to industry notables since 1956.
Published May 28, 2010
Reform at McCormick Place is now mandated by law. Yesterday, Illinois legislators overrode an amendatory veto by Governor Pat Quinn to pass a bill that will bring major changes to the management of the exposition center—changes that the Graphic Arts Show Company (GASC) and other trade show producers had demanded in return for keeping their events in Chicago.
Published May 28, 2010
Press coverage of the Civil War in periodicals such as Harper’s Weekly was extensive and is well remembered today. Less widely known is the printing that came straight from the battlefield out of small-format, print-on-demand equipment that’s recognizable as the ancestry of modern solutions for short-run production.
Published May 26, 2010
“I sold a used punching machine to a customer of mine, or did I? We agreed on a price of $45,000 for a used Lhermite EX-380 with a few dies, some modifications, and installation. My customer sent off his first and last payment to the leasing company. The leasing company sent me forms to fill out, which I dutifully did. My customer’s lease was turned down, not because he didn’t have the credit but because it was a used machine."
Published May 24, 2010
City Tech ADGA faculty members Roy Nelson (left) and Steve Caputo (dark suit) with students Vanessa Kwan, Juan Moreno, Taka Nishimura, Darren Fuller, Ruben Borges, and Diana Sanchez at their new POLAR 115 X cutter.
Though it’s often taken for granted, paper cutting is a crucial step in the successful production of nearly every printed job. To teach this essential skill, schools with graphics programs need up-to-date cutting equipment—such as the POLAR 115 X cutter that New York City College of Technology (City Tech) recently purchased from Heidelberg.
Published May 21, 2010
When selling out is the best exit strategy for your print company, there’s careful planning that needs to happen from the moment you make your decision. Patrick is joined by Tom Williams and Jim Russell of New Direction Partners, to review the long range preparation that will put you in the best position to make the sale.
Published May 18, 2010
Congratulations to the young publishing team at Toronto’s Ryerson University for winning the Helmut Kipphan Student Publication Cup in a competition sponsored by the Technical Association of the Graphic Arts (TAGA). This yearly honor salutes the best student-produced journal on research and technology for the graphic arts.
Published May 17, 2010
News media in Chicago are reporting that all is not smooth sailing for the enactment of legislation that would overhaul rules for exhibitors at McCormick Place. The Chicago Tribune, ABC News, and CBS News now say that Illinois Governor Pat Quinn will not necessarily sign the bill, at least not in its present form.
Published May 14, 2010
The best news that the Graphic Arts Show Company (GASC) has heard in a long time is that cost-saving reforms finally are coming to McCormick Place, the Chicago home of the Graph Expo and Print events. And while these much-needed changes can't guarantee a successful show by themselves, they should go a long way toward easing exhibitors' concerns about the high costs and logistical headaches of taking part in what continue to be the industry's leading trade expositions.
Published May 13, 2010
Five printing firms are among the 100 fastest-growing inner-city companies in the U.S. as recognized by Bloomberg BusinessWeek and the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC). They include, above, Hotcards, led by founder and CEO Columbus Woodruff (center); and, below, Panther Graphics, owned by Tony Jackson, CEO.
Published May 10, 2010
Legislation overhauling the management, work rules, and cost structures at Chicago’s McCormick Place convention center promises a new deal for Graph Expo 2010 and other trade shows whose owners lobbied for changes there.
Published May 10, 2010
For printers, the most iconic exemplar of ink on paper is the $100 bill, the piece of folding money that bears the portrait of their patron saint. The scientist in Benjamin Franklin surely would have appreciated all of the technology that’s been embedded in the latest version of the C-note, unveiled by the U.S. Treasury Department last month.
Published May 6, 2010
Intuit, the maker of QuickBooks, sold more than $3 billion worth of financial management and accounting software, do-it-yourself web sites, and other products and services to small firms in its 2009 fiscal year. That broad customer base is a natural source of data about trends at the small-business end of the economic spectrum—an opportunity that Intuit has seized with the launch of its Small Business Employment Index.
Published April 28, 2010
The harsh glare of negative publicity apparently isn’t going to keep Goldman Sachs from going through with a $500 million plan to aid America’s small businesses. Announced last November, Goldman’s “10,000 Small Business Initiative” will invest $200 million in education and $300 million in developmental funding for qualifying firms. On Monday, according to a reporter for Aol Small Business, an unnamed Goldman executive confirmed that the plan was still in progress and that first steps were under way. The New York Daily News reported last week that La Guardia Community College in Long Island City would be the first community college to spearhead the educational portion of the program.
Published April 26, 2010
Moderator: Welcome to Obsolete Anonymous! I've gathered you all here to welcome our latest member, the Print Industry. Print Industry: Hello, everyone. But there's been a mistake. I don't belong here. (chuckles all around) Print Industry: I'm serious. I'm not obsolete. I'm relevant. Print books have been around for hundreds of years. They're never going to be replaced.
Published April 26, 2010
Published April 26, 2010
Published April 21, 2010
Published April 21, 2010
Published April 19, 2010
Tactile gratification—the high-touch experience of turning covers and pages—is said to be one of print’s most enduring appeals. But, the pleasure isn’t universally shared. “For those with chemical intolerances and other illnesses that result in serious health symptoms when exposed to printing inks and papers, it can be difficult to read books, magazines, personal mail...
Published April 19, 2010
Published April 18, 2010
In the press assembly area of the HP Indigo plant in Kiryat Gat, Israel. HP partially raised the curtain on its presence at Ipex with the “Commercial VIP event” that it hosted last week at the headquarters of its Indigo digital press division in Rehovot, Israel. An international group of customers, print industry journalists, and analysts attended, taking part in briefings, Indigo manufacturing plant tours, and visits to Israeli end-user sites.
Published April 14, 2010
Like a weak hand at the card table, a weak offering in the M&A market won’t be improved by the length of time it’s in play. Unlike a poker hand, it can’t be bluffed because the “cards”—the fundamentals of the business—are always in plain sight of the buyer and its due diligence.
Published April 8, 2010
New York’s marketing and printing industries have joined together with letter carriers and business advocates to oppose a recently released Assembly budget proposal that would impose a new sales tax (on average 8% statewide) on promotional and marketing materials sent by New York businesses to both out-of-state and in-state customers.
Published April 6, 2010
Like their counterparts in New York, printers in Pennsylvania will have to start collecting sales tax on direct mail advertising if their current exemption from the levy is eliminated from the state’s next budget. The Graphic Arts Association (GAA) is alerting its members to the potential loss of the exemption, which would apply the state’s 6% sales tax (7% in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh) to the printing of direct mail, catalogs, and other mailed matter containing advertising.
Published April 5, 2010
Two Waltham, MA, printers speak of their struggles with rising health care costs in a video promoting the reelection of Governor Deval Patrick. Seen in this clip are Mayda Chaprazian, president of Arvest Press, and Shishir Mehta, who owns Fastsigns.
Published April 2, 2010
The Graphic Arts Show Company (GASC) joined four other trade show organizers in blasting labor costs and union work rules at Chicago’s McCormick Place exhibition center, according to a story in today’s Chicago Sun-Times. "We've gone from complaints about labor costs to anger and demand for change," Chris Price, vice president of GASC, is quoted as saying.
Published April 2, 2010
Published April 1, 2010
It may appear to be an April Fool post, but it isn’t: starting in the fall, a college will give free Apple laptops and iPads to its freshmen. Here’s how Seton Hill University of Greensburg, PA, is pitching the idea to its student body:
Published March 30, 2010
Printing Industries Alliance says that printers in New York State don’t have much time to raise their voices against a budget proposal that could cost the state’s printing industry thousands of jobs. That grim prospect is raised by a legislative attempt to repeal an exemption from the state’s sales and use tax on printed and mailed promotional materials.
Published March 29, 2010
“Lorem ipsum,” the Latin-like dummy text used by printers and typesetters since the 1500s, looks random. It’s anything but. The Lipsum site, operated by James Wilson in the UK, gives the history of lorem ipsum, discusses its use, and offers a “Lipsum generator” for those who want chunks of the text in what Wilson says is its proper format and style.
Published March 29, 2010
Published March 29, 2010
Published March 29, 2010
Published March 23, 2010
It’s over. As Printing Industries of America (PIA) duly notified its members today, on Sunday, March 21st, the U.S. House of Representatives passed both S. 3590, the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (health care reform legislation passed by the U.S. Senate on December 24th, 2009), and H.R. 4870, the Reconciliation Act of 2010 (the House's "fix" of several provisions in the Senate-passed bill). Passage was a disappointment for PIA, which had urged its members to oppose the Obama administration’s plan for health care reform.
Published March 22, 2010
Plaudits to Heidelberg for remaining a staunch supporter of SkillsUSA. This photo shows all of the Georgia students who took part in the the recent SkillsUSA graphic communications and advertising design competitions co-sponsored by Heidelberg and the Printing and Imaging Association of Georgia (PIAG) at Heidelberg’s U.S. headquarters in Kennesaw, GA.Published March 20, 2010
"Some of us get caught up in this and some of us skate through it. I do know that a lot of printers are on the edge. They’re hanging on with their fingernails and running out of cash." If you haven't already read Gail Nickel-Kailing's PrintCEO interview with Jim Duffy, leave this page immediately and go to the story now.
Published March 19, 2010
Last November, American Express OPEN® launched what could be a valuable resource for small firms seeking government contracts: Victory in ProcurementSM(VIP) for Small Business. The core of VIP is an online information exchange designed to guide business owners through the intricacies of the government contracting process. The program also will help owners connect with procurement officials, form relationships with other aspiring contractors, and get coaching and mentoring assistance.
Published March 17, 2010
Despite the industry's shrinkage, printing companies continue to be born “under the radar screen” as firms win new leases on life by merging with other firms. New Direction Partners foresees an increase in M&A activity as the industry regroups around the strengths of its healthiest and most survivable firms.
Published March 15, 2010
A devil’s brew of natural disasters and man-made economic exigencies is spreading “havoc” and “turmoil” throughout the paper supply chain, according to one paper merchant. At its blog, Millcraft Papers (Cleveland, OH) advises printers not to panic, but it also urges them to plan for the likelihood of tightened access to paper for the remainder of the year.
Published March 11, 2010
Published March 9, 2010
Seeking a higher profile for Xeikon digital presses and its other print market technologies, Punch Graphix today opened the doors of its international headquarters in Liel, Belgium, to a contingent of more than 70 print industry journalists from around the world. Seeking a higher profile for Xeikon digital presses and its other print market technologies, Punch Graphix today opened the doors of its international headquarters in Liel, Belgium, to a contingent of more than 70 print industry journalists from around the world.
Published March 8, 2010
Published March 8, 2010
Four exhibitors at IPEX—Atlantic Zeiser, EskoArtwork/Enfocus, Kodak, and Punch Graphics—are giving previews of their show plans at a combined media briefing taking place today and tomorrow at a conference center near Brussels, Belgium. Among those presenting today are Atlantic Zeiser and EskoArtwork/Enfocus.
Published March 4, 2010
The U.S. isn’t the only country where some soul-searching—and some hand-wringing—is being done about the future of graphic arts trade shows. Print21online, an online journal for the printing industry in Australia and New Zealand, reports “Kiwi outrage” over the postponement of Printech, New Zealand’s quadrennial printing trade show, from 2010 to 2012 “due to a lack of support from both sponsors and the industry.”
Published March 4, 2010
Published March 4, 2010
Agence France-Press (AFP), the international news agency, has syndicated a timely article about printers in Iraq. There are about 500 of them, and they are enjoying, according to the story, a boom in business connected with their country’s upcoming parliamentary elections on Sunday (March 7).
Published February 26, 2010
Can a start-up digital printing business reach $1 million in sales within 12 months at a profit margin of 30%? Partners Bob Lambie, Andrew Simmons, and Ken Williams will know the answer at the end of the year, and so will everyone else who follows their progress in an ongoing online chronicle that they call the Social Print Experiment.
Published February 19, 2010
We received the following in response to a recent article at Printing Industry Merger And Acquisitions, a special section of WhatTheyThink that tracks and analyzes M&A activity in the industry. The article profiled the recent launch of MSP Digital Marketing, a venture that will invest in building a network of specialty printers and other digital services for marketing communications.
Published February 18, 2010
Published February 16, 2010
In Dubuque, IA, the owner of a screen-printing sportswear business is assisting Haitian disaster relief with the T-shirt pictured above. Tom Rauen, who started Envision Sports Designs in Dubuque four years ago, is selling the shirts for $10 and will donate 100% of the proceeds to the American Red Cross.Published February 12, 2010
There was a time when, if you gave your sweetheart a present of chocolates for St. Valentine’s Day, chances were good that Jesse Salwen made the heart-shaped box you gave them in. His business, A. Klein & Co., ceased operation more than a year ago, but Salwen continues to touch real hearts with the shimmery, satiny, and velvety raw materials that he used to turn into millions of cordiform candy boxes per year.
Published February 12, 2010
When four print industry veterans decided to form a national network of digital services for marketing communications, they knew they would need the help of an M&A expert. Realizing that the digital universe is huge, they understood that locating the right acquisition targets within it was a task they could entrust only to an advisor possessing "industry knowledge, financial acumen, and a great database." Read how MSP Digital Marketing, with the help of New Direction Partners, took a successful first toward building its network with the well-executed acquisition of TecDoc Digital Solutions.
Published February 10, 2010
Published February 9, 2010
Roy Grossman and Jonathan Fogel of MSP Digital LLC talk about the formation of the company and their other partners and discuss their recent acquisition of TecDoc. They also discuss why they are launching a venture in this economy and how they see opportunity in the changes that are taking place in the industry.
Published February 8, 2010
Published February 5, 2010
Published February 3, 2010
As it did to every other print equipment manufacturer, 2009 brought a host of challenges to Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA). Declining orders, a change of leadership at the top, job cuts further down the structure, and uncertainty about the future cost this global distributor of sheetfed and web offset presses some momentum.
Published February 1, 2010
Published January 25, 2010
Published January 18, 2010
Published January 12, 2010
Published January 6, 2010
Published January 5, 2010
Published January 4, 2010
Published December 11, 2009
Published December 8, 2009
Published November 30, 2009
Published November 27, 2009
Published November 23, 2009
Published November 23, 2009
Published November 19, 2009
There’s strength in numbers, goes the old adage, but there’s also strength in the power of one—a cumulative strength that printing companies can achieve by undertaking the kind of merger known as a “tuck-in.”
Published November 19, 2009
Published November 18, 2009
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As it happens, and as reported below, both KBA and AccessGroup fared rather well as exhibitors at Print 09. But, like every other exhibitor, they have no illusions about the fact that because their customers are struggling, they too will continue to struggle against a recession from which printing could be one of the last industrial sectors to emerge. That lingering economic drag was evident throughout the show, even when interest in its many technological advancements was keenest.
Published September 21, 2009
"Unscientific" has to be the word for our selection of exhibitors to write about in the aftermath of Print 09. Some are on the follow-up list because of pre-booked editorial appointments; others because of what we heard at media briefings during the show; and, in a couple of cases, because we were buttonholed by pouncing p.r. people as we moved past the booths, never intending to stop. But, at a show like Print 09, any reason for spending time with a vendor usually turns out to be a good one in terms of knowledge gained.
Published September 15, 2009
Published September 14, 2009
To state the more or less obvious: Print 09 is an offset litho show. The rise of digital presses and a decline in the number of offset presses seen at the last three Graph Expos may have lowered the profile of conventional printing at the Graphic Arts Show Company (GASC) events somewhat, but it’s plain to see that the traditional ink-on-paper process is back in full force this year.
Published September 14, 2009
Bernhard Schreier has seen five economic crises since he joined Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG in 1975, the first of them being the one brought on by the oil embargo that threw businesses around the world into a tailspin. He also recalls the stock market meltdown that the printing industry was only starting to recover from on September 11, 2001, before the awful events of that day threw it and the rest of the U.S. economy back into a state of shock.
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