Printing Spotter
Industry and social trends affecting the commercial printing sector.
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 ...... Read More
Comments (1)Quad/Graphics Goes Public with Worldcolor
The move of Quad/Graphics from closely held family-centered printing business to dealing with public markets is begun. For years privately-held Quad/Graphics has behaved more like a publicly traded firm–transparent, open and sharing information with the industry. Now those years of positioning itself as a first class, world-class business will serve Quad/Graphics well as it combines w ...... Read More
Comments (3)Printing For a Living This Year? Visit the Consumer Electronics Show.
If you expect to continue making your living in printing, a few things will have to change. For starters, printing’s role in traditional media is bound to be greatly diminished. Newspapers, magazines and books are rapidly transforming to digital deliverables. That’s because readers are rapidly moving to digital platforms: netbooks, smartbooks, tablet computers, e-readers, ...... Read More
Comments (0)E books: Upsetting Printing's Status Quo
The ink-on-paper book “will eventually go away” asserts Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com—the Seattle fulfillment firm that leveraged online book and media retailing to reach $28 billion in revenue last year. The current Newsweek includes Bezos among “people who matter on what matters most.” Heartening that he thinks books and reading will matter—he acquired a ...... Read More
Comments (1)Improving Liquidity of Human Capital
Tight credit and other restrictions on capital have received a steady stream of coverage. In the printing industy, as in other markets, this has put a halt on some very necessary retooling to keep operations up to date and competitive at home and abroad. But another kind of capital is suffering a liquidity crisis, too: human capital. It has become almost a truism in management circles to ascribe a ...... Read More
Comments (0)Modest Proposal: Buy Books, Magazines, Mail Cards
A mini-boom has developed around the advocacy of printing and mailing, with initiatives from established associations, and from new—ones purpose built for these noble efforts to support our industry. These pushes come from within the printing industry (The Print Council), in joint efforts (Mail Moves America) and from organizations like paper companies (www.ipmovesthemail.com), or book and ...... Read More
Comments (0)Printing Groups Face Changes
To assure the display of crowd-pleasing large capital printing equipment at PRINT 09, the Graphic Arts Show Co. (GASC), owners of PRINT 09, took a calculated risk: subsidizing the cost for exhibitors moving in bigger machinery. “Altogether, GASC expects to offer up to $3 million in credit through the PRINT 09 Subsidy Plan,” Ralph Nappi, GASC president, said back in April when the ini ...... Read More
Comments (0)Kodak Prosper Color XL Press: Truly Noteworthy
It has been in development for years, but as Kodak unveiled its Stream four-color technology high-speed inkjet web press this week, the Prosper Color XL, it became evident why it has been taking so long: It is a remarkable machine. Kodak has been saying during the lengthy research cycle of Stream inkjet technology—Stream printheads were shown at drupa and ...... Read More
Comments (6)Industrial Policy Can Help Print
The lack of a clearly defined industrial policy has put the U.S. at a disadvantage among nations with which it competes. Now the Federal government is proposing a $12 billion investment in community colleges. This could be a real boon to the printing industry. Community colleges have proven a major source of printing industry workers, providing fresh talent and opportunities for upgrading wor ...... Read More
Comments (0)Online Reading: Read It In the Bathtub
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 laptop ...... Read More
Comments (3)Commemorative Issues
"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 i ...... Read More
Comments (0)Year of the Users Group
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 ...... Read More
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