Interviews with Industry Executives, Commentary & Analysis from WhatTheyThink Contributors and other video features.
Duplo’s Rick Salinas talks with Kelley Holmes at last week’s Amplify event about Duplo’s offerings for finishing and embellishment. Their solutions have proven especially popular for short-run packaging, particularly for the cannabis industry. Watch Video
Clint Seckman talks to Kelley Holmes at the Amplify Print event about Parkland Direct. The company started 40 years ago as a litho printer, began producing envelopes 15 years ago, and for the last five years has completely focused on envelopes, adding embellishments and other effects to increase open and response rates. Watch Video
Eric Vessels, President of WhatTheyThink, talks to Thayer Long, President of APTech, about APTech’s recent acquisition of WhatTheyThink, and what it means for both organizations and for the industry at large. Watch Video
Heidelberg Gallus has a long running program that offers silkscreen creation services as well as equipment and consumables for silkscreen creation on their flexo presses. Heidelberg has now opened up that program to the owners of competitors' presses as well. Watch Video
Kelley Holmes talks with David Ashkenaz, independent software consultant for the printing industry, about the fears printers have of investing in software to help run their businesses more efficiently. Watch Video
Frank interviews Dan Wood of DWRI Letterpress in Providence, R.I. Dan is one of the growing number of printers who use wood and metal type to print. Although he specializes in wedding invitations, the company produces a wide variety of letterpress-printed products. Watch Video
The State of Colorado uses Tecnau’s Revolution 50 Series high-speed cutting and stacking system in tandem with Ricoh’s VC60000 to produce a wide variety of transactional documents. The integrated equipment can produce graphic arts-quality documents with high ink coverage using coated papers in a wide variety of basis weights, and has helped the state transition from toner-based systems to production inkjet. Watch Video
This week, Warren talks with Hudson Printing’s Paul Hudson about the company's recent installation of two Landa S10P Nanographic Printing Presses, which has allowed the company to take on new kinds of work it had not been able to produce in the past. Watch Video
Michelle Kampf of Continental Grafik USA talks to Kelley Holmes about—and shows samples of—Continental’s extensive range of specialty films for a wide variety of wall, window, and floor graphics applications. Watch Video
Resident Print Geeks Jim Raffel and Shelby Sapusek recap some of the technology and product announcements that caught their eyes at the recent International Sign Association (ISA) Sign Expo. Watch Video
Frank bemoans the digital displacement of print and describes new markets based on substrates other than paper. As the volume of printing on paper declines, printers must find new opportunities in new markets. Watch Video
David Zwang talks to Carl Joachim, Partner at ePAC, which is continuing their substantial growth globally to support the increased need for flexible packaging—and have also introduced "Connected Packaging." Watch Video
Warren Knipple of Trotec Laser talks about the advantages of lasers in print finishing, giving users precise cutting control and, when used for cutting polyester textiles, sealing the edges of the fabric, precluding the need for hemming or welding. Watch Video
This week, Warren talks to Tom Mounce, President of Blue Ocean Press. Based in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla, Blue Ocean Press was founded 39 years ago as a general commercial printer, then over the years added promotional items—T shirts, hats, mugs, etc.—then the warehousing and fulfillment of those items, then digital printing, and then signs and banners. The company is also heavily into digital embellishments using MGI technology. Watch Video
Epson’s David Lopez talks about some recent Epson product announcements that were on display at the ISA Sign Expo, including the company’s first UV flatbed, a resin-ink printer for soft signage and other textile applications, and a variety of other wide-format printers. Watch Video
Kelley Holmes talks to APTech President Thayer Long at the inaugural Amplify event, presented in conjunction with the FSEA, a show dedicated to finishing and embellishment technology. Watch Video
Jeff Bittner, owner of AlphaGraphics in Wood Dale, Ill., shares his experiences in maintaining the business during and post pandemic, including strategies for working through difficult times as well as his optimism for the future of the business. He reports that May 2022 was the best month ever for his store, which opened in 1998, and much more. Watch Video
Resident Print Geek Shelby Sapusek talks with Dreamscape’s Greg Imhoff. Dreamscape is a producer of digitally printed wall décor, and now has 32+ unique, texturized, colored, printable wallcoverings. Dreamscape puts a lot of effort into quality control and especially color management, performing spectral analysis throughout the production process. Watch Video
Kelley Holmes visits Strategic Factory’s Owings Mills, Md., facility to talk with president and CEO Keith Miller about the company’s second straight win as Top Small Commercial Printer—and help celebrate its 22nd anniversary. Watch Video
Print Geeks is a dedicated section on WhatTheyThink that takes a deep dive into the more technical and—“geeky”—aspects of color management and color education, offering feature articles and video interviews curated by Jim Raffel and Shelby Sapusek. Check it out at whattheythink.com/printgeeks. Watch Video
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