Frank's Mail Call

Frank shows off some of the items he gets in the mail. Frank now knows he can annoy people in yet another language, a promo piece that's too good to throw away and paper you can really feel all up ahead in This Week with Frank Romano

Hi, this is Frank Ramona. How are you? Welcome to another episode. Things people have sent me or given me in the last few days, months. My Inkjet book that I did for GATF, now PIA, has been translated into Spanish. I can now annoy an entire group of people in another language.

Every one, I swear, I lost count after a while, every one sent me a link because an ink truck rolled over on I95 in the Boston area. You can see it says, “Flint Ink” here. Some of the reporters showed it as, “paint that’s ink”. So immediately all the pundits came out. Are there ICC color profiles for asphalt? Can you color manage a highway? Instead of I95, I see C95. It was sort of a mess; wasn’t it? But every one of you thought of me as soon as you saw this catastrophe. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.

This is a piece that came from a binding company; company that makes bindery and finishing equipment. I should mention their name. It’s not easily on my lips. Kama, Kama. ProFold 74. So this piece opens up. But it’s really not so much the format.

Discussion

By Werner Rebsamen on May 25, 2011

Hi Frank,
great article,the content just as I presented it on May 15 in Quebec City. Everybody keeps telling me that books as we know them, are doomed. E-Books will prevail. I tell them - not so fast! Non-traditional books are now 3 times as many as the "traditional" titles. Bookmanufacturer's will loose approx. 1/3 of their business by 2020. Now, they all re-tool for short-runs, something we at HBI have promoted and followed for some time.
Just look what Lightning Source is doing. Over 50'000 books each day. Averages used to be 1.8 per title, it is now slightly over 3 as publishers finally got a wake-up call and use short-run services.
Oh well, nothing new for us. In the late 1970's, we did not know each other but we both made the same predictions - On Demand printing and binding. At that time they did not believe us. That's the time I purchased my first Apple computer wit 48K! Now it is such an exiting age
with lots of great, new opportunities. June 7, we will discuss international photo book standards at a week-long meeting at RIT.
All the best - keep up the good works, love your articles!
Werner Rebsamen
Professor Emeritus RIT
Technical Director HBI www.hardcoverbinders.org

By Tim Henschel on May 25, 2011

Frank,

That beautiful KAMA piece you show is our very same demo job Jim Dunn, president of Heidelberg USA, uses during his Print Delivers presentations for the Print Council . As you stated the piece features cold embossing and hot foil stamping and was produced on a KAMA ProCut 74 die cutter, for which Heidelberg is the US distributor. Those finishing effects are a great example of how a printed piece truly touches a prospect and where a printer adds value by creating a tactile feel to the piece that makes it “jump out” of the mailbox for the recipient.

Tim Henschel

By General Access on May 31, 2011

Frank,

I've been an F.R. groupie since about 1975 when people in the shop would fight over who got to read Typeworld next. I'm the designer of the KB Offset calendars and I was thrilled to hear you mention them in your video. Hope I can come up with a theme for next year that you like as well. (Always open to suggestions. :))

Thanks!

Bill Brickley
Create Director
KB Offset

By James Kohler on May 31, 2011

Nice piece Frank but Paper was the stage that allowed such beautiful printing!! Beautiful printing would be nothing without great paper!!

Jim Kohler