Pre-press – 20 years of change – part 7
Pre-press – 20 years of change – part 7 – March 25th 2009
Heavy metal goes digital
In 1996, Steve Jobs returned to the helm when Apple brought NeXT, the company he had founded following his departure from Apple in 1985. That year was also marked by a subtle shift in printing industry, market perceptions, as people started to take digital printing and the data that would drive it much more seriously. Heidelberg moved into pre-press with its acquisitions of Linotype-Hell. The digital colour proofing market was also hosting up with the introduction of the 600 dpi HP Designket and CTP was coming of age with 8-up thermal CTP engines introduced at Imprinta and over 30 different device suppliers and 13-plate suppliers. There was a clear divide between those who belived in digital printing and those who did not, preferring to invest in the much less risky CTP and offset combination. At the time they were probably right, with the quality for digitally printed output still sub-standard and variable data software still too hit and miss to be taken seriously.
Two persistent problems plagued the industry and blocked its progress: the lack of sound database knowledge and experience in the graphic arts, and the lack of decent standards based workflow management. Two events however showed the way towards the industry’s future: publishers News International ordered a 1200 seat system from Unisys based on Sybase database technology and running under UNIX. This was the largest order of its kind ever, and gave true media independent database driven production a toehold within the publishing industry. And, Agfa introduced: Apogee, the world’s first PDF based workflow system. It didn’t have a database, but at least it was based on a de facto standard.
Within a few short months digital technology had hit the mainstream and people’s consciousness. Google, a named derived from googol, which is the number 1 followed by 100 zeros, is incorporated. The use of the term reflects the mission to organise a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web. The introduction of digital television to the UK market and continuing telecoms deregulation in 1998 encouraged a widespread digital awareness. Apart from gadgets and an explosion in mobile phone use, that awareness helped to drive a frenzy of media related software development. In the graphic arts there was a burgeoning of variable data software technologies, a rising market for digitising films for digital workflows using copydot scanners, and flatbed scanners reached maturity. But digital awareness also brought digital anxieties, with growing fears about the future of print and of the dreaded millennium bug.
To be continued…
See Part one, two, three and four of this blog – Pre-press – 20 years of change
See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6 of our blogs on Direct Mail and Transactional Print
School Prospectus Made Easy and Print Buying Direct are trading names of The Printing House Ltd. The Print Buying Direct brand was originally set up to protect the quality name of The Printing House of Crewe and Nantwich, Cheshire, Uk – recognised throught the North of England as a quality printers. Now Print Buying Direct has established itself over the last two years and has become a quality brand in its own right with very competitive prices nationally. We hope that School Prospectus Made Easy will follow in the same fashion and become a popular brand in its own right.
Print Buying Direct is one of the Uk’s leading suppliers of graphic design and print, based in the Crewe and Nantwich area of Cheshire (UK) but supplying all of the UK & Ireland. See our websites for more information on graphic design, brochures, business cards, appointment cards, leaflets, flyers, pamphlets, posters etc
Please feel free to browse our print buying website and use it as a useful tool – we are adding new pages and offers every week. So keep popping back, subscribe to our printing blog, email info@printbuyingdirect.co.uk or call call 0870 950 8444.
For more information please see our websites – especially our Printing Glossary – Printing A to Z – this makes a really useful guide for designers, printers, print buyers, college students etc.
Don’t forget The Printing House also specialise in Printing for Schools, especially School Prospectus, Secondary School Prospectus, College Prospectus, Primary School Prospectus & Sixth Form Prospectus. We have a vast range of experience design and print of primary, secondary, 6th form, college and universtity prospectus. Visit our School Prospectus Made Easy website to see examples of our work and more about our products. Our customer testimonials webpage is constantly being added to – please stop by and see our reviews.
Tags: appointment cards, Brochures, Business Cards, cheshire, crewe, Flyers, graphic design, Leaflets, nantwich, Pamphlets, Posters, Pre-press, print, printers.printed, printing, school prospectus
March 30th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
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March 30th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
[...] Part one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve and thirteen of – Pre-press – 20 years of [...]