Noel Jeffrey

O'Neil is a technology-driven firm possessing a wealth of equipment, software and expertise to provide the infrastructure necessary to produce marketing communications and publications.

CROSS-MEDIA services go hand-in-hand with digital printing and variable data. Two companies with lengthy digital printing experience, as well as two newer adopters, illustrate that point. To be a cross-media company means bringing in IT expertise or training internally. It means convincing customers that the company is capable of services beyond print. And, above all, it means consultative selling and “walking the talk” with cross-media marketing campaigns that show customers the power of this approach. Serge Grichmanoff, vice president of research and development at Avant Imaging & Information Management (AIIM), tells how in the early 1990s the company’s founders took the job of creating

FOCUS ON the basics—market opportunity, customer needs, streamlined workflow and the right equipment—is paying off for City Colors Digital Printing Center, Doral, FL. A family owned and operated business, City Colors was created in 1998 as a “to the trade only” printer, running a new Heidelberg QM DI with an imaging system from Presstek. As the company grew, it added two more of these direct imaging presses. Today, it employs 18 people and has recently added two Presstek 52DIs, replacing two of the QM DIs. “We’re confident and happy about our future and our opportunity for growth,” reports Maria Elena Infante, who handles the

FOR SOME, it’s a matter of survival and, fortunately, given the state of the newspaper industry, for others, it’s a matter of growth. In either case, newspaper/publication printers running coldset web offset presses are expanding their product ranges or delivering greater value to existing customers. Through increased automation, newer technologies (like UV inks), new presses, new publication configurations, or some combination of these options, printers are offering both internal and external clients production efficiencies and the opportunity to upgrade to color quality levels that have greater appeal to advertisers. Ron Magee, pressroom manager at the Carroll County Times, Westminster, MD, reports that last summer

BY APPLYING ad­­vanced digital printing and workflow technologies to customer needs since 1997, Lightning Source has sent a current through the publishing industry. It’s charged a new business model and unheard of speed for delivery of one-off books based on print-on-demand (POD) manufacturing. POD means a customer orders the number of books needed, even if that’s only a single copy. Economically speaking, a title need never go out of print. “Our mission is to be the global leader in on-demand solutions for the book publishing industry,” proclaims Kirby Best, Lightning Source’s president and CEO. Those solutions include maintaining a digital library for publishers, offering