Graphic Arts Online Blogs
PSP to MSP Controversy Emerges
At NAPL’s recent Top Management Conference (TMC) I learned about a controversy brewing about printers offering and becoming marketers. Most printers know that the value and volume of printing services alone is difficult to sustain. As a result, most try to offer more value-added services such as design, variable data printing, mailing, fulfillment, etc. However, a natural extension of vari ... More
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NAPL's Howie Fenton tackles digital printing, workflow management, color management, process control and emerging digital technologies.
The great debate: What of magazines and newspapers?
Some very large magazine publishers pooled their money recently to launch their new campaign, “The Power of Print.” Publishers of such notables as the Rolling Stone, US Weekly, More, Wired, Smart Money, People, to name a few, paid for the campaign. The campaign was extremely well executed from all points including copy, design, art direction and impact. The question that this campai ... More
About this blog
Addresses a wide range of marketing topics, including building an online brand image and creating brand messages that produce qualified sales leads.
You’ve Discovered Sales Gold…Now How Do You Use Those Dang Mining Tools?
My last post outlined the value of click-through data from your outbound email marketing campaigns. The really short version: it’s sales prospecting gold… if you use it properly. Email click-through data offer a window into what your customers and prospects need right now. If a recipient clicks through to the digital printing page on your website, it may mean they have a live ... More
About this blog
Revenue generating growth strategies for North American graphic arts companies in any business environment.
Hot Stamping Over Water-based Coating
Question: Our hot stamping is coming off on a coated job. Why? Answer: Well you are in luck - this is an easy one. You must use a hot stampable coating or else you will have major failure. Keep in mind that a water-based coating has a significant amount of wax in it - apply heat and pressure and you have a disaster. Contact your coating supplier for a hot stampable coating - they do exist. Reade ... More
About this blog
A Graphic Arts Online blog that answers questions submitted by readers on key print production issues.
Americans in favor of 5-day delivery
A majority of Americans think it’s a good idea for the US Postal Service to eliminate Saturday delivery, according to recent survey from Rasmussen Reports. While this raises the question of just how a big a role mail plays in their lives, a significant percentage of respondents also said there will be a need for the post office 10 years from now. While 31% of respondents to the recent natio ... More
About this blog
Covers the latest trends, opportunities and regulations in mailing and moving printing.
How do You Read?
I had some interesting conversations about books, Kindles, Nooks and the like on Linked In a few weeks back that showed just how blurry the line is along the digital divide between “real” books, the ones printed on paper, and “e-books” that people read on their computers or gadgets like the Kindle, Nook, iPhone/iPod. Most people were kind of ambivalent, noting the adva ... More
About this blog
Digital Printing is a blog by Noel Ward, giving his perspective on the latest trends in the market and the changing relationship of digital and traditional printing technologies.
Web Fonts emerge to help make web sites less ugly
Yesterday I signed-up for the Web Font license of a single type font from the Ascender Corp., a digital type foundry in the Chicago suburb of Elk Grove Village (where I once actually saw an elk!). The license is free for 30 days, after which time I must pay $10.00 per year to license the web font that I chose. I licensed Plantin Light, a handsome font that I chose because it is the most unlike an ... More
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Workflow, process, and imaging trends
That Disconnected Feeling
One of the biggest downsides of the Internet revolution and ePublishing hit home to me this week. Forget the arguments over whether reading a book on screen is hard on the eyes, especially if the screen is tiny. There is still the fundamental problem of actually grabbing the data out of cyberspace. I have been spending the week in Orlando with a perfectly horrible WI-FI connection and virtua ... More
About this blog
Plugged In is a blog by industry veteran, Stephen Beals, ofering his take on the latest developments in print production technologies shedding some perspective on the future of print.
Posts of Interest
A Couple of recent Guest Blogs on Printoolz will be of interest to readers of the Forums. One is a look at Apple’s new iPad by former Seybold Report Editor John Parsons. The other is a look at selling print to non-professional print consumers by the President of PrintLinqs, Tim Madden. Please respond on the GOA Forums Your comments are invited. SB Content Manager, GOA Fo ... More
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GAO Forums
Verdict's In: Printing Business Models Need to Change
Printing is among the industries highlighted as showing 2009 capacity declines in today’s Wall St. Journal, shrinking roughly 6%, less than textile mills (-7%) more than furniture manufacturing (-5%) . That’s not news to printers, who are buying others or closing–Jackson (MI) Printing bought competitor Champion Printing and Mailing and expanded; Alonzo Printing, Hayward, CA, i ... More
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Industry and social trends affecting the commercial printing sector.
Outlook Graphics deal, web printing plant closure, ex-Bowne CEO dies
Died, Dec. 15: Edmund Stanley, 85, who served for 30 years as CEO of New York City-based financial printer, Bowne. News media and coldset/heatset web printer Forum Communications Printing, Fargo, ND, closes its Wadena, MN printing plant, affecting 32 employees as it relocates presses to consolidate operations at its Detroit Lakes, MI plant. Outlook Graphics, Neenah, WI, has signed a long ter ... More
About this blog
Commercial printing business news, printing technology news, and digital printing and printing industry supplier
Happy Holidays from the Forums
2009 saw Forum memberships triple, so that’s a start. We’re still waiting on our conversion to the new format, and when that finally happens, we expect the growth and discussions to make a huge leap forward in the coming year. We thought it would happen much more quickly, but getting new technology up and running isn’t always something you can pin a date on, so we’ve st ... More
About this blog
The GAO Forums cover a wide area of interests for printers, buyers, vendors and service providers. The GAO Forums blog keeps readers up to date concerning the ongoing Forums conversations.
Day 46 of 91 selling days:* Relationship Building 2.0....
*Why 91 selling days? Because the three months of September, October and November are the three most important selling months of the year and those three months contain 91 days. Get it? I was talking with my Dad yesterday over lunch. Both of those events are rarities, so I tried to cherish the moment. We got talking about business and specifically how things have changed since his day (he&#x ... More
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<p>Selling printing, services, and managing sales</p>
I'm back! Day 43 of 91 selling days...
I’m back! Due to a long series of unfortunate events (mostly technical and none my fault), I’ve been in Blog-atory. Now, thanks to the fast actions of the IT Department at Reed, I can get back to the omnipotence that is my Blog. And if you believe any of what I just wrote, why weren’t you buying printing when I was selling. First, some personal stuff and then on to busin ... More
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Just another NWP - Blogs weblog
Printing Newsbites Print 09
CGS applications unify color space so the dual-engine digital perfector Xerox iGEN4 220 (due first half of 2010) matches color front to back. Consolidated Graphics’ Frederic Printing will likely extend its CGS color controls to its newly installed HP T300 inkjet web press.>> 2009 CIPPI awards were given last evening to seven printers from all over t ... More
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Printing technology trends in digital printing, offset printing, mailing, bindery and finishing seen at the PRINT 09 trade show in Chicago Sept. 11-16.
PRINT 09 Tidbits
Zebra Print Solutions, Research Triangle Park, NC, installed two Oce VarioPrint 6200 digital duplex systems and PRISMAprepare software. xpedx is holding free seminars to help printers understand the financial crisis affecting the U.S. Postal Service and "Do Not Mail" legislation. Digital Edge, Oakville, ON, purchased a K200 DOD system form Domino Amjet. NPES and the Graphic Arts Show Co. honore ... More
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Buzz and breaking news in the printing industry.
Mulcahy: 'Stay Close to Customers'
How can printing firms drive results in today’s down economy? Do what Xerox does: First and foremost, "stay close to your customers—especially now," advises Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy, speaking at a luncheon held yesterday in Chicago. Statistics show that most companies that are able to retain 5% of their customers show a 25% bottom-line profit, she says. By contrast, ... More
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Lisa Cross and Bill Esler offer Letters to Editor, reports on the print industry conferences and tradeshows and miscellaneous musings.
Show of a Thousand Small Things
Top questions at Graph Expo: Can I retrofit that? Can I get it used? Can you finance it? This was the show of a thousand small solutions to everyday problems. It was also a show at which major industry suppliers adopted a leadership role. They will take the management chops they’ve developed to redirect themselves for where our industry is headed, and apply this ... More
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Digital printing and offset printing, finishing, mailing, wide-format production technology,education news and conference news for Graph Expo 2008, the printing industry\'s largest U.S. gathering this year.
How Green Was My drupa?
Not very. With 391,000 attendees and 1,800 exhibitors in 18 halls, the event had the carbon footprint of a small nation. Especially given the continuous output of printed product at stands around the Dusseldorf grounds. PEFC held a conference on sustainability on June 9; FSC held meetings on June 9 and 10. Quite a number of exhibitors made their case for improved performance efficiencies tha ... More
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The global show of paper and printing technologies in Dusseldorf, Germany.
