Interviews with Industry Executives, Commentary & Analysis from WhatTheyThink Contributors and other video features.
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
Frank looks at the typesetting and printing of languages other than English. As usual, he takes us on a little trip through the evolution of type, with the history of Linotype, Monotype, and phototypesetting. He ends with the publication of the Unicode standard. He is the only WTT presenter to ever mention King Farouk. Watch Video
EFI announced yesterday the acquisition of Inèdit, the leading RIP for digital textile printing. The company has been using the Inèdit RIP for some time, and in this interview, Senior Vice President and General Manager Adele Genoni, explains why the acquisition is important to Reggiani. She also notes that EFI will continue to meet commitments with other suppliers that use the Inèdit RIP. Watch Video
In this video, Senior Editor Cary Sherburne speaks with Spoonflower's Kerry King, Senior Director of Process Innovation, about how things have changed for Spoonflower with its acquisition by Shutterfly almost a year ago, how they are adapting to the supply chain and human resources challenges, and her thoughts on whether reshoring of the industry will gain any kind of critical mass. Watch Video
Kelley Holmes talks to Carmen Eicher of swissQPrint about the company’s wide-format printer portfolio. The ISA Sign Expo was the first showing of the company’s recent product releases, including a set of neon inks and its Generation 4 printers, including the Nyala 4, which features new printheads and smaller drop sizes. Watch Video
Kelley Holmes talks to Brian Phipps, President and GM of Mutoh America, about the company’s return to industry events, and some new product launches, including the new eco-solvent XpertJet Pro line with a new printhead and 25% faster speed, and the XpertJet 661, a 24x19-inch flatbed UV printer. Watch Video
This week, Warren talks with Reza Shafii CEO of Tiger Press, about the company’s origins as a copy shop called Copy Cat that Shafii started with his wife after they graduated college in the mid 1980s. After adding several locations around western Massachusetts and southern Vermont, they added offset printing capabilities. The cat grew up and the company was renamed Tiger Press in the mid 1990s. Today, the company is pursuing greater efficiency and automation. Shafii also talks about the advantages of being part of the Graphic Arts Alliance. (Sponsored by Graphic Arts Alliance) Watch Video
Shelter Insurance in Columbia, Mo., is a property and casualty insurance company that operates in 21 different states. When they wanted to switch from toner to production inkjet for their—to add color and better compete against other insurers—they chose Screen, which has dedicated itself to continuous-feed inkjet. For finishing equipment, Shelter turned to its long-time partner Tecnau. See how Screen and Tecnau helped Shelter make its transition. Watch Video
Resident Print Geek Jim Raffel talks with Caldera’s Joey Phillips about the latest updates to Caldera’s software. Version 15 of CalderaRIP will see improvements to the cutting algorithm, new drivers, and updates to existing drivers, amongst other new and upgraded features. PrimeCenter, Caldera’s prepress software, also gets a major upgrade to Version 2. Watch Video
Heidelberg has always installed their new presses and even offered services to relocate them for customers. Now they are offering a program to relocate entire production plants, including all Heidelberg and non Heidelberg equipment. Watch Video
It's been four years since the last Texprocess Americas show, and according to SPESA President Michael McDonald, a co-organizer of the Atlanta event with Messe Frankfurt, it was an outstanding show, with the exhibit hall and the aisles crowded, and lots of innovation. Watch Video
Believe it or not, we have been printing variable data for at least 45 years. What we were doing then is what Jacob Aizikowitz calls Legacy or Classic VDP. In this video interview, he explains what he means by Modern VDP, how it differs from Classic VDP, the technology framework that was required to enable Modern VDP, how adoption of this framework helped print service providers differentiate themselves, and where we go from here. Watch Video
Frank goes off on two rants. First, he reports that some newspapers will not have sports scores from afternoon or evening games. Their front pages will contain commentary and little news. Then, he saw that printers were blamed for errors in ballots and asks who signed off on the proofs. Watch Video
WhatTheyThink contributors Pat McGrew and Ryan McAbee dug deep into Canon Prisma in a recent WhatTheyThink Product Spotlight. In this video, Bob Barbera, Canon USA Marketing Director, hits the high points on Prisma, its value to a production operation, and the new tools the company has added. Watch Video
© 2024 WhatTheyThink. All Rights Reserved.