Blogs

Print companies need employees with skills in offset printing, color adjustment, plate making, imposition, and pre-press.

What is your unique potential? Are you getting what you should from your market basket of potential or do you tolerate your results?

Pricing isn’t the only thing you need to know. Here are 20 questions you should ask when selecting a print/mail service provider.

Achieving a high-quality barcode isn’t as simple as it seems and depends on a combination of factors.

Print embellishment is a growing opportunity for printers seeking to differentiate and raise price points with a “value add,” and the new Xerox PrimeLink system offers numerous effects including fluorescents, silver, gold and opaque white. PRINTING United Booths 12345, 12541.

Designed to add extra creative impact to offset and digital color printing work, JETvarnish 3D from MGI (Konica Minolta) adds strong embellishment, creating an eye-catching, distinguishing characteristic that stands out among other printed pieces. Differentiate! PRINTING United Booth 9536.

Marketers are targeting smartphone owners through mobile marketing techniques such as QR codes, blending print with digital.

Barbara Pellow shares a story of a PSP that used Clickable Paper to deliver an omni-channel experience to a professional sports team.

Here are a few examples of what marketers are doing to optimize the print/mobile customer experience and maximize marketing spend.

Paper stock is a great tool to create direct mail that enhances your ROI, and come up with a strategy to get attention.

At the beginning of 2019, buyers of publication grades will be paying about 25% more for paper than they did just 18 months earlier.

Did you know that paper absorbs moisture in the air, which can impact quality? Here’s a short guide on paper in relation to humidity.

No other trade show has ever spread as large a tent for all the wonderful things that graphic communications technology is capable of.

To get the most out of PRINTING United, make vendor appointments, evaluate educational sessions worth attending, and network.

A user group conference provides a gathering of customers and prospects in a smaller group with real world learning.

The new system includes faster-to-market delivery coupled with system development that lowers the cost of production, even as the number of customer SKUs continue to grow. Further, the system includes design tools to minimize expensive trial-and-error. PRINTING United Booths 10564 and 9344.

The new equipment brand, VALEZUS, includes high-speed printers for the production printing market. The VALEZUS T2100 prints cut sheets at 320 pages per minute. The T2100 is the new brand’s first equipment rollout. PRINTING United Booth 10935.

Landa Digital Printing captured the attention of drupa 2012 and 2016. However, news had been pretty quiet, until last week.

If the machines don’t need us, they’ve discovered that they need each other – and that they’re better together under Industry 4.0.

The newly updated software can save users significant amounts of time in the printing of wide-format and other project types, and works to eliminate substrate/media product waste. A new feature assists in the management of large numbers of jobs. PRINTING United Booth 3820.

Midmarket Print Productivity Suite increases competitiveness by maintaining higher efficiency, eliminating errors and simplifying production operations. The system’s flexible interface includes detailed information on production jobs. PRINTING United Booth 8233.

The VersaUV LEC20300 from Roland DG enables high-quality CMYK printing of a vast variety of surfaces. With a 30-inch print width, it’s an excellent solution for commercial printers looking for entry into durable, rigid graphics. PRINTING United Booth 4616.

With the expansion of wide-format printing, companies like Kennickell Group are able to offer a variety of wide-format options.

There is a way to get into the wide-format business and experiment with the concept without committing to huge capital expenditures.

There are many things that can go wrong with a direct mail campaign.

We all need to reach ever-increasing direct mail response rate goals. This is a challenge. Here’s how to solve it.

The use of color in direct mail is very important. The right colors can increase your response rates. Why is color so important?

The new, high-gloss printable laminate film from Nobelus offers scratch-resistance and can be used for gluing, foil stamping, UV coating and more. It is intended for direct mail, magazines, folding cartons and other applications. PRINTING United Booth 10141.

We have seen lots of advances in adhesives for bookbinding over the years, with PUR (polyurethane reactive) adhesive being the last major game changer. But there is now a revived interest in protein-based adhesives.

Quick! Name two consumables that are indispensable to operation in the bindery. If you named adhesives as one, you'd be on the mark. But...if you included knives, (yes, they are a consumable), you would be quite savvy. Cutting and trimming are part of almost every finishing operation. And the quality of those cuts are essential to the quality of the finished product.

HP’s Indigo 12000 HD system is increasingly being used for applications such as professional and wedding photo prints. The system’s high-definition writing head doubles print resolution and outperforms the quality of most offset printing. PRINTING United Booth 6407.

What follows is an interview with Rosemarie Breske Garvey, VP at Blooming Color in Lombard, Ill. Blooming Color is doing some pretty spectacular work beyond traditional four-color printing and I wanted to learn more.

Dscoop is part tradeshow and part education event, with an agenda that included A-List keynotes and mentalist Lior Suchard as emcee. The sessions were the expected array of customer success stories, successful selling solutions and product reviews, but there were also a variety of sessions covering finishing, packaging and 3D printing.

Heidelberg’s Speedmaster XL 106-5 press is the machine of choice for a Canadian sheetfed printer: Its integrated LED drying technology gives companies additional product options, as well as a way to access higher-margin printing opportunities. PRINTING United Booth 10143.

Citing the need to increase capacity and gain a competitive advantage, the perfecting press from RMGT was the perfect choice for a growing business. This and other solutions from the company will be represented in Dallas. PRINTING United Booth 9551.

OK, I digress from my usual finishing tech. discussion this week. Although I’m on the digital finishing side, I spent enough time in the high-volume offset world to become quite familiar with publication, periodical and catalog production.

The need to protect and secure the data is becoming increasingly critical. Have you considered these potential causes of data loss?

The data enrichment process can help marketers, agencies, and service providers develop successful, customized material.

A targeted direct mail list is extremely effective. Analyzing the most effective list can help you identify prospective customers.

The imagePRESS C850 offers print speeds of up to 85 letter-size images per minute, duplex, long-sheet printing, and can handle heavier, coated or textured stock. The imagePRESS C850 also features in-line finishing options including creasing and trimming. PRINTING United Booth 7016.

Xerox recently unveiled the Iridesse. Now that the glitter has settled, there are a few questions to explore about its possibilities.

The grapevine has been ripe the past weeks, but now the news is finally out. Fujifilm has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase the majority holding of Xerox Corporation and will merge Fuji Xerox with Xerox.

Gina Ferrara digs deeper into her research with Madison Advisors on color migration and digital delivery.

The use of CMYK+ is poised for moderate page volume growth, based on several factors.

The perception of color is dependent on three distinct variables — the light source, the object and the receiver.

Don Piontek shares some of the diverse finishing applications and systems he’s come across in his career.

During a recent trade show, Don Piontek looked for the newest finishing technology and he found innovations in mechanical binding.

In the search for new finishing developments, Don Piontek received a LinkedIn press release alert on something called “Vpaper.”

It looked like a good fit. The seller, unfortunately, didn’t see it that way.

As a trade association president, I knew that one of my most important jobs was to offer our members a friendly, well informed, third-party perspective on strategic business issues. Today, our New Direction Partners clients want the same thing: not just information about the mechanics of M&As, but also a genuine understanding of the industry and the mindsets of the people who own those companies.

For many years, I had the privilege of serving in leadership positions with Printing Industries of New England (PINE), the largest printing trade association in the Northeast. Then as now, I was greatly impressed by the resiliency of our members and their ability to adapt to changing business circumstances.