Award-Winning Rewards
By Jack Rosenberger, Project Editor -- graphic arts online, 3/1/2001
For the second consecutive year, the family owned Rohrich Corporation, Akron, Ohio, has won a Printing Industries of America Best of Category Premier Print Award ("Benny") for its waterless printing prowess.
In 1999, the company took first place for its lighthouse poster entry. Last year, Rohrich won again with "American Barns," a business-to-business promotional boxed desk set that includes a 9 1/4 x 6 1/2" calendar, 6 1/8 x 4 1/2" note cards, and 4 3/4 x 6 1/2" postcards, all of which are illustrated with Ian Adams's color photographs of wooden barns.
Quest for quality
Officials at Rohrich, a commercial sheetfed printing company that recently celebrated its 65th year in business, say that the company's commitment to waterless printing revolves around the high level of quality this form of printing affords.
"Waterless printing provides extremely fine detail on uncoated and coated paper with very minimal dot gain," says Tom Messner, a Rohrich account representative who initiated the "American Barns" project. "It's a quality process, especially with limited art reproductions."
Along with minimizing dot gain, waterless printing's benefits include "a quicker, more efficient color balance and an environmentally better print process," explains Ken Arbogast, the company's manager of printing services.
For Rohrich, the project's biggest challenge was meeting its self-imposed 45-day deadline, Messner states. "To fine-tune the idea, put all of the pieces together, and for it to be an effective piece, it took a good working relationship," he relates.
Coated, uncoated stock used
Bath, Ohio-based Babcock, Schmid, Louis & Partners designed the piece using QuarkXPress 4.11 and Photoshop 5.5 software. Rohrich used an SG 757 laser scanner from Screen (U.S.A.) to produce film separations. Images that appeared on coated stock from Sappi Fine Paper were output at 280-line screens, while those on Fraser Papers uncoated stock were output at 233-line screens. "We worked very closely with Fraser Papers," says Messner. "They're an excellent mill, and were a big help."
Using Braden Sutphin inks, "American Barns" was printed on a 41" eight-color MAN Roland press with tower coater, and 40" two- and six-color Planeta Super Variant machines. Rohrich also used a Heidelberg Cylinder 25 1/4 x 35 3/8" machine for die cutting, and contracted Cleveland-based Spiral of Ohio to handle the book's double Wire-O binding.
Pleasing results
Rohrich printed 3,000 copies of the project, most of which were distributed to current and prospective clients.
"'American Barns' has been an excellent way to convince our customers of the type of quality work that can be attained with waterless printing on uncoated paper," states Messner. "We're tremendously pleased, and the project has been very well received," he says, adding that the project garnered a host of new customers. "Many of our clients who received 'American Barns' have asked us to do the same type of waterless printing for them."
