This is the column where I announce the winners in the sales letter contest that I announced in my January column. But first, 'scuse me while I do my old man aerobics exercises. I'm trying to burn off some calories. I've put this fat old body on a 1,500 calorie-per-day diet and I'm going to keep losing weight until you all:
The stakes are high and the iron-producing players are few in the world of 40˝ and larger sheetfed presses. Today, manufacturers are looking at what printers want in a press tomorrow. BY ERIK CAGLE The crystal ball is working overtime at manufacturing facilities around the world. While you make your way at DRUPA 2000 through the hundreds of thousands of people cramming the aisles of the 18 buildings at Messe Dusseldorf, the R&D people, the tech heads and marketing gurus are looking past the present. They're thinking DRUPA 2004. Phrases float through their brains: increased automation, but what's left on the press?...what is the
Job tickets—which have been around since Gutenberg, if only in an elementary form—have evolved from handwritten envelopes to computerized, customized, global documents. In the new millennium, that evolution continues as job tickets are transformed from mere digital versions of their paper-based predecessors to virtual windows in the production process. BY CHERYL A. ADAMS "Our crystal ball indicates that, not only will print buying on the Internet become widespread, but also, in many cases, the management systems that the printer uses [such as those for electronic job ticketing applications] will be run totally over the Internet, as well," says Carol Andersen, president of Micro
On the bill for DRUPA 2000 are a virtual army of new imagesetters, a variety of digital platesetters, plus PDF tools, new thermal consumables and scanning systems galore. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO It seems almost ironic that, after DRUPA 1995 called for the prepress industry to move its collective reasoning away from film-based environments and toward the promise of thermal CTP, that DRUPA 2000 would arrive, after much anticipation and press attention, and tout almost the opposite. Film is not dead. Imagesetters are still hot technologies. Guess what, so are platesetting devices for conventional and thermal CTP; so are new digital proofers; and so
The DRUPA exhibition, scheduled for May 18-31, in Dusseldorf, Germany, is now just one month away. Digital prepress technology trends targeting the international show include new PDF-based workflows, new color management tools and a variety of solutions to further automate front-end functionality. To map out the digital prepress direction of DRUPA 2000, Printing Impressions went direct to the sources . . . Vector VersatilityDennis Aubrey, CEO of the Altamira Group, on the limitless nature of images at DRUPA 2000 and into the next year—when digital images are no longer restricted in size or resolution. The year 2000 will see a production world in which
Celebrating its 25th (silver) anniversary, Graphics of the Americas 2000—held February 4th to 6th in Miami Beach—was the first international printing and converting trade show of the new millennium. But, unlike the Y2K fears that generated false media headlines as the new millennium approached, this event lived up to all of its advanced billing. Catering to both the U.S. and Latin American graphic arts industries, Graphics of the Americas 2000 featured more than 23,000 attendees and 1,500+ exhibit booths encompassed within more than 500,000 square feet of exhibit space. For the first time, the show occupied all four halls of the Miami Beach Convention
Digital printing is finally well beyond concept acceptance, as On Demand proved last month. New moves in on-press imaging and color server technologies—and the Internet—are delivering on the promise of digital printing. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO Given the impossible-to-ignore high velocity of the Internet as it targets multiple areas of the print production process lately, it is no surprise that the Internet is also targeting the time-sensitive profit center that is on-demand digital printing. True to current form, the dotcom emphasis at On Demand in New York was staggering, but not surprising—new online solutions for on-demand document fulfillment, new Internet tools for
Valassis Communications is the coupon guru, the originator of the free-standing insert—that four-color coupon booklet, which has become a household commodity, if not phenomenon, as a modern day, money-saving device. Now, it's revolutionizing the way consumers clip coupons by offering "virtual savings" online. BY CHERYL A. ADAMS If you've ever saved money with one of those Sunday newspaper coupons, chances are, you have Valassis Communications to thank. And you'll be even more thankful in the new millenium, when, beginning this year, Valassis is printing and distributing a record number (44 weeks!) of free-standing inserts (FSIs) in Sunday newspapers nationwide. And, that's not all.
ARLINGTON, TX—The Imaging Bureau, a 29-employee shop based here that handles film output, ink-jet posters, digital and commercial printing, currently rents a 10,000-square-foot space. By the end of the year, however, that's all going to change if Brian Walden gets his way. "Our plan is to build a 50,000-square-foot building in Arlington that will include the new web press and require hiring 15 to 20 additional employees," says Walden, who started the company as a one-man operation eight years ago. The firm, which already runs a five-color Heidelberg sheetfed press, plans to add an eight-unit Heidelberg M-110 with double folder and UV coater.
BY DENNIS E. MASON A search for a modern printing company is not likely to begin in Columbia, SC. But it should end there, with Crowson Stone Printing. Founded in 1923 as Crowson Printing, Crowson Stone became the state's first offset printer in the 1950s. Still a family operation, it is led by John K. deLoach III, the third generation on the Stone side of the business. The 50 Crowson Stone employees generate annual sales of nearly $6 million. deLoach experienced other sides of business before taking the reigns of the family print shop, including earning a degree in business and finance. He then
