Printing Impressions' Sustainable Printing News for October 2008
AT ondemandcolor, Long Island City, NY, being a successful commercial printer means more than just offering affordable, high-quality offset printing.
THE INTEREST and activity regarding sustainability in print in the past year has grown leaps and bounds with major buying organizations. Our research at Print Buyers Online.com indicates that print buyers are beginning to consistently seek new solutions and up-to-date advice on best practices for creating, buying or manufacturing sustainable print projects.
You’ve heard me say it before; gone are the days of the passive print buyer. They are no longer sitting back and waiting for print reps to cold call them or invite them to lunch. Today, consumers are proactive. They research their options. And the advancement of the World Wide Web has enabled them to spread a much larger net, capturing information on potential suppliers well beyond the area of their zip codes or states.
MEMPHIS, TN—Verso Paper intends to take about 30,000 tons of downtime related to coated groundwood production during the fourth quarter of 2008. Roughly 9,000 tons of downtime will be taken at its Sartell Mill in Minnesota over a two-week period beginning October 5. The balance of facilities to be impacted will be determined during the fourth quarter.
IDTechEx recently visited Soligie in Minnesota. Soligie is wholly owned by Taylor Corp., a $1 Billion holding company which owns about 100 businesses focussing on niche areas of printing and media. Matt Timm, President of Soligie, and a veteran of the electronics/semiconductor industry, was exploring new opportunities for Taylor Corp. and set up Soligie in 2005.
CINCINNATI—September 15, 2008—xpedx today announced it will open the xpedx Technology Center at its metropolitan Cincinnati headquarters to provide U.S. print professionals a single location where they can learn about, test and purchase new equipment and technologies covering all aspects of offset and digital printing. The center is set to open in January 2009.
MEMPHIS, TN—Verso Paper will begin transitioning the No. 1 paper machine at its Bucksport Mill in Maine to manufacture specialty papers beginning September 22. With this move Verso will begin supplying value-added specialty papers to customers, which leverage Verso’s core coating and lightweight paper production techniques. Once fully transitioned, this change will reduce Verso’s coated…
NEW YORK—It seems that Batgirl unleashes some un-lady-like expletives in a recently issued comic book, thanks in part to a printing error that failed to blacken her blue streak. In “All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder” No. 10, a number of popular curse words, including the dreaded “C” word, can be seen in the comic. According to the New York Post, the words were supposed to be blacked out, but two shades of black were used and the curse words are quite legible. Publisher DC Comics has asked stores around the country to pull the issue, which isn’t aimed at minors, but an
At Print Buyers Online.com, there are certain Quick Poll questions that we ask once a year to see if there are significant sea changes among our members. One of these polls is “Would you go to lunch with a sales rep from a printing company that you have not yet given work?”
This year, 70% of our major print buyers said, “No, I’m generally not comfortable with that.” This caught our attention because for the previous three years, the numbers had remained steady at around 60%. What’s with the drop? Do print buyers just not “do lunch” anymore? Let’s delve
