Print Buying Direct

Digital Printing presses – part 1 – 24th September 2009

The mighty march of digital is set to continue in 2008. With some dubbing this year’s drupa as the ‘inkjet drupa’ or even the ‘digital drupa’ it will be interesting to see the many new products that manufacturers are bringing to market. The enhancements to print quality over the last few years on most of these machines has meant that to the layman, the quality of the output is almost indistinguishable from that of offset no longer merely fit for purpose, these machines are able to produce extremely high quality and premium jobs.
So, if that is taken for granted, what is there to look forward to this year? Well, running speeds are still of some concern and we will see a number of manufacturers bringing to market both colour and black and white devices that run faster than ever. For example, Xerox has recently launched its fastest black and white continuous feed system in the 650/1300, which can print up to 1232 duplex A4 images per minute.
Another trend will be for machines to be more flexible. This will mean that they are able to handle a broader selection of media and substrates making them suitable for a wider range of markets. There are some exciting new opportunities that will open for digital print companies as they move to new sectors and increase revenue streams from outside the comfort zone of general commercial print. This can mean anything from entering the short run packaging market, to prototyping, to books on-demand to fine art, to highly sophisticated one-offs including variable data, to bespoke projects.

The transpromo market (where a marketing message is included on the ‘white space’ of transactional documents) will also allow printers to make use of their digital equipment, and the variable data features to the full.

Light production machines will also be important as more and more print companies look to make their first move into digital without the investment costs of a full production machine.

Kodak NexPress, for instance, is now available in a smaller, more compact version – the M700- to give those looking to start out in digital a further option.

Promo - look out for our forthcoming offers on Wall Calendars, Desk Calendars, Xmas Cards, Promotional Wall Calendars and CD Calendars.

For more information on printing and graphic design please see some of our recent blog articles;

• Digital Printing
• Offset Printing
• Print Production Management
• How to create a marketing plan incorporating promotional newsletters
• All you need to know about Digital Printing
• The Future of Printing
• Print Finishing
• Variable Data Printing
• ISO 12647 and Colour Management in Printing
• Pre-press – In Flight, Pre-Flight and Post-Flight
• Print, Paper and Recycling
• Design of the times – (Article reproduced from Printing World February 2009)
• Pre-press – 20 years of change
• Transactional and Direct Mail
• 7 Guidelines For Good Newsletter Printing
• Graphic Design
• Printing – Where in the world are we?
• Improving Your Response Rates to Leaflets, Flyers and Brochures
• HINTS & TIPS…The sales letter
• The History of Printing
• 10 Tips for Creatives in a Digital World
• Eight Easy Ways to Improve Digital Print Sales to Creative and Design Agencies
• Transactional and Variable data printing
• PUR or EVA? That is the question
• What you need to know about…… Perfect Binding
• What’s the point of Recycling Paper and Board?

Digital pre-press part 2 – 23rd September 2009

Heading for the web (Web to Print)

Such cross media applications will be increasingly popular for digital printers in the coming year. Already we have seen many UK digital printers embrace the web to print concept, primarily for digital file delivery, proofing and general production applications. The nest step in the emergence of web to print as an on-demand print production model is the development of dedicated applications that combine quality controlled colour production workflow technologies, the Internet and imaginative multi-channel media production.

Of course, interesting web developments are not only relevant for print media, and this is something that forward thinking digital printers should not ignore. Across the media landscape content publishers are coming up with new ways to exploit our digital infrastructure and the Internet. Think BBC iPlayer and the relationship between broadcast television, digital data delivery and access, and the printed word and you should start to get the idea.

Variable challenges

And, ideas are what pre-press for digital printers are all about. Pre-press is about managing digital data as efficiently as possible for a given output context, and for digital printers this means variable data print management. Variable data use within the print market is starting to grow, especially for printers working transactional print and direct mail. Variable data printing technologies are fuelling the development of new printing applications, such as bespoke photo albums and collateral materials for consumers such as family stationary and calendars. Rather more interesting from the digital printer’s point of view is the addition of promotional content to transactional documents, such as bills and statements. The so-called transpromo market is starting to hot up and this will continue in the coming months as printers work with their customers to look at interesting ways of adding extra messages to their transactional documents.
Perhaps the biggest difficulty with developing variable data applications is the complexity of managing the data. The need to accurately output data cannot be underestimated so any digital printer wanting to develop ambitious variable data applications needs to invest in data management knowledge. Training in database management is key to providing customers with the resources they need to develop variable data applications and to helping them to get the most out of their digital print investments. It used to be about technology, but today investment for digital printers has to include investment into knowledge.
Fortunately companies such as Canon and HP have set up programmes to help printers develop business models that exploit the technology without too much risk. We can expect to see more such programmes emerging this year, particularly those that help digital printers to decide how to route jobs; to a digital press or to a conventional offset press based on profitability of the workflow and the job. And for digital printers, profitability is what pre-press is all about.

Promo - look out for our forthcoming offers on Wall Calendars, Desk Calendars, Xmas Cards, Promotional Wall Calendars and CD Calendars.

For more information on printing and graphic design please see some of our recent blog articles;

• Offset Printing
• Print Production Management
• How to create a marketing plan incorporating promotional newsletters
• All you need to know about Digital Printing
• The Future of Printing
• Print Finishing
• Variable Data Printing
• ISO 12647 and Colour Management in Printing
• Pre-press – In Flight, Pre-Flight and Post-Flight
• Print, Paper and Recycling
• Design of the times – (Article reproduced from Printing World February 2009)
• Pre-press – 20 years of change
• Transactional and Direct Mail
• 7 Guidelines For Good Newsletter Printing
• Graphic Design
• Printing – Where in the world are we?
• Improving Your Response Rates to Leaflets, Flyers and Brochures
• HINTS & TIPS…The sales letter
• The History of Printing
• 10 Tips for Creatives in a Digital World
• Eight Easy Ways to Improve Digital Print Sales to Creative and Design Agencies
• Transactional and Variable data printing
• PUR or EVA? That is the question
• What you need to know about…… Perfect Binding
• What’s the point of Recycling Paper and Board?

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