Empowered with augmented reality and printed on Ricoh’s inkjet platform, this new textbook embodies the emerging education trends of linking print and online

Malvern, Pa. – Ricoh USA, Inc. announced the latest success in its efforts to push the boundaries of innovative, interactive print with the recent release of Introduction to Graphic Communication, Second Edition (www.igcbook.com), a textbook that also includes interactive content, such as videos and online discussion. Empowered by Ricoh’s Clickable Paper augmented reality solution, the industry’s first such book incorporates a broader interactive digital experience that demonstrates and describes the future of graphic communications. This book, written by Dr. Harvey Levenson and John Parsons, is now available for purchase.

“Print may be changing faster now than it has at any time in history and equipping our future generations with tomorrow’s interactive print possibilities today will be crucial to our industry’s future successes,” said John Fulena, Vice President, Commercial & Industrial Printing Group, Ricoh USA, Inc. “It’s truly the best of both worlds. There’s no better topic to center this Clickable Paper-powered textbook around than learning about our industry. We’ve all seen the statistics on the power of print and the psychology of engaging with communications you can touch. This textbook doesn’t just tell students about the future of print – it shows it to them via all channels. We’re honored to advocate for the future of our industry with our technologies that enhance it today.”

With augmented reality, print and electronic communications can work together more seamlessly than ever before. Clickable Paper enhances traditional print pieces, from books to signs and anything in between, to connect end users with digital content. By simply pointing a smartphone or tablet at a printed piece, readers can be immersed in a digital experience. Clickable Paper requires no specialized, design-disrupting markings, like QR codes. Additionally, it can be updated as frequently as every hour, making the adjustment of marketing campaigns on the fly quick and easy – or, in the case of this textbook, helping to minimize future versioning and associated costs.

This textbook includes web resources and instructional videos. To give audiences a more complete picture of the industry, videos range from miniature lectures from respected industry analysts to demos and clearly marked marketing videos from vendors discussing how they are addressing emerging trends.

“The science is clear. Even ‘digital natives’ have a better, more lasting learning experience with a printed book,” said John Parsons, co-author of Introduction to Graphic Communications and former Seybold Editorial Director. “But digital resources and reinforcement are also essential. With this book, we set out to make a book that doesn’t just describe the future – it is the future. That’s why we brought in all of these augmented reality resources and partnered with Ricoh to do so. Today’s college students are spending hundreds if not thousands of hours engaging with interactive, web-enabled content, but without context or focus. Clickable Paper is helping us make a printed book an ‘anchor’ for complete learning.”

Clickable Paper leverages Ricoh Visual Search image recognition technology to enable communications to reach beyond the printed page by linking printed materials to rich online media sources – photos, websites, e-commerce portals, videos, social media platforms, to name a few – empowering marketers and other users to make print interactive quickly and easily, as it does not require any special markings, such as QR codes. Recent enhancements added gaming features, push notifications and cookies-enablement, allowing users to engage in challenges, contests, quizzes, surveys and more, along with new customization and workflow capabilities, increasing and improving campaign engagement and ROI. Analytics provide near-real-time, anonymized reports on how users are engaging with content.

For details on Ricoh’s full line of production print products, services and solutions, please visit https://www.ricoh-usa.com/en/products/commercial-industrial-printing and join the conversation on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter using #LookAtRicoh.