Interviews with Industry Executives, Commentary & Analysis from WhatTheyThink Contributors and other video features.
This week, Warren talks with Bill Atta, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer at Melbourne, Australia’s Dreemar. A sister company of the prestigious and award-winning Eastern Press, Dreemar develops augmented reality (AR) products specifically for the printing industry. Eastern Press launched Dreemar with the goal being to add value to print in areas where they saw print declining. Watch Video
When Shutterfly announced it was acquiring Spoonflower, we sort of said to ourselves, well, that makes sense. Now, Michael Jones of Spoonflower and Dwayne Black of Shutterfly share the entire story with our viewers—how the acquisition benefits both companies and their respective customers as well as the industry at large. An exciting move! Watch Video
Sappi is a well-known name in the printing industry, known for its high quality fine papers, its dedication to sustainability, and more. But did you know they have a product that can deboss wood grain on wood products that use printed laminate for products such as cabinets, or create a 3D paper-based structure that can imprint leather grain on artificial leather products? Nicholas Yardy, Director of Release Technology, explains this and more in this interesting video chat. Watch Video
Frank heard that American Airlines is discontinuing its inflight magazine. This prompts a discussion of the “war on paper” that began more than 30 years ago, which had led to many paper mill closures—a situation only made worse by the pandemic. Watch Video
David Zwang talks to Tasha Ventimiglia, Americas Event Director for Labelexpo Americas, about the challenges of the pandemic for an event company and the much-anticipated return to in-person events with the upcoming Label Congress in Chicago at the end of September. Watch Video
In this video sponsored by HP Indigo, Regina Guslitzer, L&P Materials Development R&D Manager, talks about how HP developed materials and processes for primers, varnishes, and lamination along with a new inline priming system to allow the HP Indigo V12 to offer the utmost in label versatility. Watch Video
This week, Warren talks with Garry Gunter, President of Mitchell Since 1928. Founded in...1928, the 81-employee company comprises three units: Mitchell Press (high-speed web offset), Mitchell Digital (digital printing and Web development), and Pacific Bindery (a trade bindery). Mitchell Since 1928 thinks of itself more as a communication company than a print company. Watch Video
Felix Mueller, President of Heidelberg USA, shares his excitement about the company's presence at PRINTING United, which will feature a Smart Print Shop, whose core is software infrastructure that helps to reduce touches and make the manufacturing process more efficient. The booth will also feature a Heidelberg Versafire digital press and a Heidelberg sheetfed offset press, as well as a Polar cutter. Watch Video
Frank talks about very old printing presses, specifically, the evolution of the two-person hand presses into the single-user platen presses named for George Phineas Gordon of Salem, N.H. The advantage of the platen press was that it used a foot pedal, and thus could be operated by one person, unlike the older hand presses which required two operators. The platen presses were the workhorses of the 1800s and early 1900s, and many are still in use. Watch Video
This week, Warren talks with Andrew Ettinger, CEO of The Best Postcards. The Best Postcards is a Connecticut-based multimedia marketing company that started in direct marketing. The company specializes in helping customers find their own unique niches. Watch Video
In the latest installment of the Print Geeks Interview Series, Resident Print Geeks Jim Raffel and Shelby Sapusek talk to Marty Davis, President of Alder Color Solutions, about how “color management” should really be “color IT.” It’s not just being able to hit a brand or PMS color, but how fast can you get to color? Are you wasting materials and time getting to color? Are you reworking jobs? Watch Video
Kristen Dettoni founded Design Pool in 2019 as a B2B initiative targeting interior designers with an extensive design library and a network of printers who could execute their projects. During the pandemic, she launched Domanda Designs, a B2C initiative. In this conversation, she discusses some of the challenges with gaining mindshare in a B2C environment and what she is doing to counteract those. Watch Video
What the Hell? Frank talks about color scanners and emphasizes the granddaddy of them all, the venerable Hell Scanner, named for Dr. Rudolf Hell. Their use in the 1960s made color common in the printing industry, and trained scanner operators could pull in a decent salary. Soon, more than 10 companies had scanners and prices dropped so that every designer could have one. Now scanners are built into most desktop printers. Watch Video
Diversified Global Graphics Group (DG3) was founded as Cunningham Graphics International Inc. (CGI) to provide time-sensitive investment research printing and worldwide distribution in response to customer needs not being met efficiently by other firms. Over time, the company has diversified its client base and its product and service mix to become a leading provider of end-to-end communications solutions to financial, life sciences, and other industries. DG3 has trusted HP technology to provide their customers with the best printing quality in the industry with the latest enhancement to their fleet being the HP PageWide Web Press T250 HD with Brilliant Ink. Watch Video
APTech and FSEA have teamed up to produce a new industry event: AmplifyPrint will be held 14-16 June 2022 in Minneapolis, a conference and exhibition dedicated to educating printers and designers about the latest possibilities in the realm of finishing. More info can be found at www.amplifyprint.org. Jeff Peterson and Thayer Long explain the event in this video interview. Watch Video
This week, Warren talks to Clint Seckman, President of Parkland Direct, which started out 40 years ago as a mom-and-pop commercial print shop. In the early 2000s, the company started to focus on direct mail and envelope printing, specializing in high-quality litho print and embellishments. Watch Video
In this video sponsored by HP Indigo, Ami Yaari, R&D Mechanical Engineer at HP Indigo, talks about and demonstrates the feeding system on the HP Indigo 100K Digital Press. The 100K’s multiple input sources have many advantages, including the ability to load different substrates into the machine and rapidly switch substrates during production without stopping the press. Watch Video
Adi Chinai of Boston-based King Printing shares his thoughts on how the pandemic affected the book market, which segments are growing most, and how production inkjet printing has changed the business. He also talks about the growth in self-publishing and how digital technologies have made that more accessible to more authors. Watch Video
There has been a noticeable uptick in printing directly on food, such as cookies, cakes, and other comestibles. He still has his archival carton of printed (and deteriorating) Pringles from the 1990s, but with inkjet, you can print on anything—even foods. Watch Video
Richard Romano talks to Keith Miller, President of Strategic Factory, this year's top small commercial printer, in this excerpt from our recent "Top 100 Small Commercial Printers" LunchLearn Webinar. Watch Video
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