Printing Spotter   

For years I have lived comfortably with the assurance that digital media was not competitive to physically printed and duplicated media: ink on paper and hard-copy sound recordings. And I have dutifully and honestly reported my views on the matter. You know the critiques: 

♦ Can't read 'em in the bathtub
♦ Noisome noisy fans on laptops and PCs
♦ Eye fatigue looking at the screen
♦ Need the liner notes and album sleeves 
♦ Uneven reception from weak wireless signals

All that stuff.

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"Running a business is more than making the bottom line."
More, yes. But never less than. That quote appears on a forward leaf of Jean Williamson's Japs-Olson: 100 Years of Lasting Impressions, a commemorative book that is a joy to read, or even peruse. Horizontally designed at 11¾×8¼´´, Smyth sewn*, and with a heady whiff of still-fresh ink wafting from its colorful pages, the 264-page book chronicles a century of U.S. printing history, setting it artfully in the context of America's journey as a country.

And how inextricably these two tales correspond and interconnect. The U.S. printing industry's story mirrors that of our nation—from its 18th century origins leveraged upon a free, voluble (and plentiful) press,...Read More

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Meetings this week show the growing power of printing-related users groups. Two end today—four-day gatherings of the  5,500-member Kodak customer group known as the Graphic Users' Assn. (in Orlando); the National Postal Forum (in Washington, DC); and the EskoArtwork Users Assn. (it ended its run in Orlando yesterday). These groups are intended to empower customers, and provide direct input to the hosting organizations. 
The Graphic Users' Assn., from which I am reporting, traces its roots back 14 years to the Creo Users' Assn. Along the way, with the acquisition by Creo of Scitex, it took into its fold the ardent user group of Scitex Brisque workflow. As long-time members related those post-merger days, it was clearly a fractious moment that will live on...Read More

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From the outside, last week's approach by RR. Donnelley to buy Quebecor World may seem like a familiar sparring of two publicly traded firms—one intent on buying, the other possibly a more diffident about the possible transaction. But in this case it is the bankruptcy judge and the creditor committees whose opinions will carry the greatest weight on whether RR Donnelley is permitted to buy Quebecor World. (In case you missed the whole thing, last week the number one U.S. printer made public a detailed of...Read More

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High-end auctioneer Sotheby's is nearly as famous for its catalogs as for its auctions. But the company will try smaller catalogs and digital versions of them in an effort to trim print costs, and so, reports the New York Times, meet changing preferences of its clientele—which is anyone with money. (Estimated price for a Picasso paionting in the catalog: $16 million to $24 million.) 
The catalogs that were mailed to Sotheby's hot list of 10,000 bidding prospects for impressionist art also received a USB stick with an e-version of the catalog. The digital e-version&...Read More

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Time Inc. has been getting flack in some blogs over its Mine magazine, an on-demand publication engineered with the ad agency for Lexus automobiles, and American Express Publishing. But it seems that consumers like it. The venture repurposed content from a variety of existing magazines (Real Simple, Travel & Leisure, Time, etc.) to generate a personalized edition of a publication, including ads for Lexus that mention the recipient.
The publication is "media neutral" in that registrants at the specialized site could select either a one-of-a-kind digitally printed copy on paper, or a fully electronic "flip" edition, which is a bit like a PDF. . . or a even a bit like ...Read More

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Cruising the news for what's new and what's next this weekend, I ran across this: artistic renderings of live newspaper front pages hit the streets Friday as hand-drawn front pages of the Louisville Courier-Journal replaced the actual front page. (The real front page was reproduced on page 5 in the edition.) All the words and pictures were rapidly redrawn by artist Serkan Ozkaya, creating a mass produced work of art. The meta-artistic rendering has been done at other newspapers, and is reminiscent of the artists who redraw currency and then use the objects of art as artistic payments for goods and services.
The effor...Read More

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Call it a changing of the guard. The printing industry is seeing a rapid revamp of top management, and more importantly, management style. Some of this coincides with the changing economy—mergers, buyouts, closures. But the movements to sustainable printing and to comtinuous improvement programs, is impacting how we do business. 
The change was particularly evident during the March National Environmental Health & Safety Conference. This 10th annual gathering for all matters OSHA and EPA, has turned its attention increasingly to concerns around sustainability for printing. It has also become the platform for the Sustainable Green Printing Partnership to propagate a new formal definition of what constitutes green printing. 
Besides the usua...Read More

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Good timing for a trade show? The Dow rose 250 points Tuesday as some 400 exhibitors completed their move into the Miami Beach Convention Center, buoyed by Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke's view that 2010 will be a year of recovery. As the rugs were being vacuumed yesterday the Dow fell 80 points, so we're still ahead of where we were Monday. 
The daunting economic background, however, has winnowed out those attendees who are undaunted by the business-scape. An estimated 15,000, about 40% from Latin America, are expected to view some 400 exhibitors before the Graphics of the Americas concludes Saturday. And there is plenty to see and hear. GAM gets a bird's-eye view, as we are producing the Official Show Daily and will be p...Read More

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What's in it for me? The passion of self-interest is what will best serve to reignite the the infinitely complex boilers of our economic engines. So for the printing industry, this bill will offer a new opportunity: $20 billion to advance the digitization of medical records. 
The long-term goal is to cut medical costs by making the operation of insurance companies and medical providers more efficient, paper-wise. The jump-start component is embodied in the arcane language pasted below, though there is no assurance what the final bill will hold. However, it is just possible that since Barack Obama's economic advisory committee, drawn from business, includes some folks who know about digitizing printing products--Anne Mulcahy, CEO of Xerox; Richard Parsons,&...Read More

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If you think boys will never willingly choose a book over a video game controller or a remote control, think again. The Guinness Book of World Records earned a sort of reverse cache as the most shoplifted title in bookstores—by young boys. Guinness World Records identified that appeal, as it annually publishes the Gamer’s Edition, a records book devoted solely to the world of computer gaming and high score record achievements. The Guinness World Records website receives more than 11 million visitors a year. 
Now the company has combined the appeal of two aspects of this demographics' top interests—gaming, and the intriguing and exo...Read More

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Black Monday saw 80,000 employees laid off around the U.S., and an unfortunate 7% of Reed Business Information's 2,400 workers were among them. Layoffs are widely reported, and a current poll at the GAM site shows we are all becoming quite familiar with the experience. Luckily the editorial staffs of Graphic Arts Monthly and sister titles Packaging Digest and Converting Magazine saw no editors depart. However, our well-liked publisher, Phil Saran, has left. It was my pleasure to work with Phil since I rejoined Reed in 2004. Phil called me back from my own "forced redundancy,"as the Brits call it, after the...Read More

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