Print Buying Direct

Digital pre-press part 1 – 22nd September 2009

This is the year of the hybrid workflow and digital printers are increasingly looking to add capacity with conventional offset and direct imaging presses. In order to get the most out of their new press investments, digital printers are looking at workflow systems to drive both static and variable data output.
Setting up a system to drive two different workflows isn’t desperately challenging or expensive. And, there are plenty of system developers who can tell digital printers where and how they can spend their hard earned money to do it. But that isn’t the hard part. The hard part is setting up a system so that the same job printed using two different production workflows, looks absolutely identical from press to press.
And it gets worse, because a print application might include some material with variable data and some without it, even though the majority of the job is the same. If the run is only a few thousand it is obvious that such a job can easily be printed using variable data software to manage the data flow and print the job on a digital press. If the job is tens of thousands thought, there needs to be tight colour management and control across both workflows.

Colour conscious

Quality control across devices isn’t just a concern for digital printers setting up hybrid workflows. It is also an issue for printers wanting to get equivalent colour quality across their fleet of digital presses. Fortunately suppliers have recognised that device profiling isn’t just a matter of creating a generic profile for their specific press technologies. We can then expect to see far greater improvements in colour quality this year as digital printers start to really get to grips with colour management, exploiting the device profiling tools that manufacturers such as Xerox with iGen3 press, are making available and to be shown at drupa this coming may. Being able to accurately profile an output device will help digital printers to improve their overall quality control, not just for individual short run work. It will also help them to maintain colour consistency throughout longer runs, and to ensure that subsequent reprints are colour accurate. To support hybrid workflows and to help ensure colour output quality, developers such as EFI, Creo PODS and Fujifilm are introducing new workflow technologies capable of driving multiple devices and workflows. The idea is to have a front end system with the capacity to support any quality demands and to be able to run high speed digital presses at rated speed. The scope of technology options for such front end systems will be even greater in 2008 as developers increase the options and tools they include with their systems. New soft proofing options from FFEI with Realvue and Dalim with its Virtual Library technology will allow digital printers to extend their workflows across media. Both of these tools, developed originally for job phototype and remote production proofing, are ideal for presenting media online as part of a publication or job ordering system.

To be continued…

Order your Christmas Card Printing early – click here for prices and more information about your Corporate Christmas cards

Print Production Management part 2 – 9th September

Process automation
Production management is primarily about process automation, however there are several standards most significantly ISO 12647, that production managers need to keep in mind in the process of system automation. Industry excitement surrounding the Job Definition Format (JDF) has relaxed into something rather more circumspect of late; however we expect to see a bit of resurgence this year. JDF implementation depends to a great extent on investment into new kit, and as old technologies are replaced with JDF capable systems, implementing process automation gets immeasurably more straightforward. Version 1.4 of JDF, to be introduced in May, will provide printers with additional supports, without compromising their existing JDF routines. This version adds new specifiers to make it easier to manage files with, for example, control over ganged jobs and improvements to the security and management of data transfers.
Through JDF, production management and MIS are becoming increasingly intertwined. Production management technology looks after the nitty gritties of production while MIS takes care of the business management side of things. JDF/JMP can help manage data across both environments so that people can share common information and so changed such as additional costs in production are accurately reflected, especially when invoices are about to be raised. Increasingly, commercial printers are relying on their MIS technologies to provide detailed business information, information that can help improve performance reporting for all departments, individuals, jobs and customers. Altogether it adds up to improved accountability and profitability for the business.
Information management technologies are all about keeping the business up to date and informed, so that company owners can help their customers ton invest more wisely, and of course more frequently, in print, it is about improving print’s cost effectiveness for customers, keeping it central to market investments and at the heart of multiple channel communications.
Most multi-channel marketing relies heavily on web technologies for its effectiveness, however, advanced print media production will increasingly depend on new web framework technologies designed to improve the development and support of web applications using templates and helper tools, smart URLs and memory management. Ambitious printers are working with their customers to maximise the industry’s production efficiency. Together they are ensuring that print yields the best overall retune on investment for communications and for information consumers.

Print Production Management part 1 – 8th September

Managing production efficiently is all about automating everything that meets standard production parameters and making it easy to find and fix the bits that don’t. Production management is about getting ink on paper and finishing the job as cost effectively and as uncompromisingly as possible. The process should be optimised for the most commonly produced work and yet have the scope to support the unexpected jobs that every time printer faces on a regular basis. And of course, it should function across the Internet so that customers can view job status, order print online, proof and approve jobs, or simply trial ideas with live estimating from the printer’s MIS.

Weaving the web
There is certain irony to the fact that a number of years ago the Internet was perceived as a sort of death knell for the printing business. Nowadays web based tools have gained market acceptance for everything from online job submission through to complex collaborative workflows. The web has to be part of any production system development; however its contribution to a production workflow should be application and market driven. For example, there is no point at all to investing in an online soft proofing and approvals technology, if customers insist on hard copy output.
So saying, there is plenty of technology to support both requirements. We have even seen a leap in the capabilities of relatively inexpensive digital proofing systems to support spot colour proofing. Systems are available from a number of suppliers including market leaders GMG, EFI, Agfa, Screen and Perfect Proof. It is possible to set up these systems to function in a distributed environment using colour management technologies to ensure that remote devices are colour accurate to a specific target. For photo typing jobs, projects and publications online we have new technologies from FFEI and Dalim, based on gaming techniques, plus conventional soft proofing from vendors and such as Screen, Agfa, ICS and others. As with al things in digital pre-press, we can expect to see some important advances at drupa in May.

To be continued…

Everything you need to know about Digital Printing – part 17 – Final Part to this Blog – 28th July 2009

At drupa 2000 manroland introduced the only DI web offset press to date, called the Dicoweb. This used seamless stainless steel plates that fitted onto sleeve cylinders that could be interchanged with different diameter sets to vey the print cut off length. Plates were imaged on the press by a thermal laser transfer system and could be re-imaged after use by scrubbing them clean and starting again.
Dicoweb was a vey advanced concept but not a commercial success, with only a handful ever installed in commercial print sites in Germany and Switzerland, all officially as test machines. It didn’t appear at drupa 2004 and by 2008 the project appeared to be at the end.

The future
Looking ahead over the next two decades, it is an easy prediction that digital printing will continue to advance in all sectors. What is not so clear is how soon and how much it will start to replace today’s dominant conventional processes.
This issue is not so much the imaging technology, although the trade off between speed, quality and consumables costs (particularly digital ink and toners) are particularly important when comparing costs and capabilities with conventional print. Inkjet is advancing rapidly and may well become the dominant digital technology, although toner systems are also still rapidly increasing in speed and quality so there many always are an important process too.
Far more important tan the specific technologies will be the awareness and acceptance of the advantages of digital by print buyers and specifiers such as designers, advertising agencies and publishers. The message needs to be driven home by print service providers that personalised variable data print means less waste and greater response; that digital labels and packages can help bring products to market faster while coping with ever changing labelling regulations; and that on-demand books mean that long runs and expensive warehousing isn’t needed.
The environmental issues are important too: digital printing doesn’t need film or plates or associated chemistry, while the short run, just in time aspects of the process mean less wasted paper and lower requirements for transport and heated storage.
As one digital print manufacturing executive said, ‘We can predict where digital will be in 20 years time. What we can’t say is where it will be in 20 months time!’.
New Look Website for The Printing House Website – 15th July 2009

We’ve been working hard over recent months to try create a new look and new content for our flagship brand The Printing House Website – bsed in Crewe, Cheshire, one of the UK’s leading colour printers. When you find some time, please take a look and feed back to us. Some of the new content includes A Guide to Preparing Print Ready Artwork and information about our Large Format and banner printing service.

We’re a bit sad and are so excited by our new site that we’ve now rebranded Print Buying Direct, Golf Club Centenary Books and School Prospectus Made Easy – let us have some feedback, hopefully you agree they look much cleaner now.

Keep watching all our sites as we are continually adding new content.

To be continued…

See part one of this blog on digital printing here. Also – what does the future hold for printing – part 1

All about the new Printing House Website

Order your Appointment Cards online at Print Buying Direct – prices from £13.50 for 100 cards printed in full colour. At print buying direct we are market leaders in the printing of appointment cards and can produce them for doctors, hairdressers, dentists, physio, beauty salons, nail technicians, garages, massage therapists – for anything really. Just visit our Appointment Cards web page for more information.

Our business cards are some of the best in the business – printed in full colour on our £200,000 state of the art digital press – you’ll be proud to hand out business cards that we produce for you. Our business card prices are also very cost effective – 100 full colour business cards for only £10!

Don’t forget we’re still running our Letterheads promotion – 2000 full colour letterheads (headed paper) for £125 delivered! We’ve been producing letterheads since 1991 for hundreds of customs as diverse as Bentley and Royal Mail.

See Part 12 of this blog on Print finishing, See also our Blog on Spot UV Varnishing

Print Buying Direct and School Prospectus Made Easy are both brands of parent company – The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK. Keep visiting both websites for details of our latest offers and promotions. For more information School Prospectus including School Prospectus Design or School Prospectus Printing (we also specialise in college prospectus) see our www.schoolprospectus.info website

Have a look at our Newsletters webpage for help and assistance with writing and designing your newsletter. It deals with, company newsletters, college newsletters, school newsletters and employee newsletters in particluar. Our blog often focuses on newsletters and we have a page which specifically helps with newsletters as a marketing tool.

TOP TIP: Add that feel of quality to your company brochure by first applying Matt Lamination then a Spot UV Varnish. The UV Varnishing actually ‘lifts’ your pictures to give them a glossy impact.

Our Digital Brochures (turn page technology) are really taking off now – get your brochure put online from only £15 per page.

One of the mainstays at Print Buying Direct is Leaflets. We are experts at Leaflet Design or Leaflet Printing Check out our Banner Stands (pop up banners) only £99. Design service available.

Everything you need to know about Digital Printing – part 11 – 17th July 2009
This approach is likely to become increasingly common. For instance Matti in Switzerland also builds complete print lines called JetRunnar, based on Kodak’s Versamark heads. The largest to date is a 98 cm wide machine capable of up to 152 metres per minute at 300 x 600 dpi in four colour duplex. This was custom built for direct mail printer VPrint in Belgium, and delivered in the autumn of 2008.
Dortix also uses this approach. It was originally an independent company spun off from Barco in Belgium. Agfa bought it in 2004 and by Ipex 2006 had introduced Dotrix Modular, which puts a four colour inkjet print engine onto a more or less standard reel fed flexographic press chassis, built by Edale in the UK. This allows the user to specify a hybrid system with in line flexo print and finishing components.
The past couple of years have also seen the introduction of high quality, very fast ‘narrow web’ inkjets that are aimed at the labels market, with potential in flexible packaging. These mainly use UV cured inks for use with standard label or plastic substrates.
‘Narrow we’ seems a somewhat elastic term, for while the true label machines are built to take standard label reels of five or seven inches, some are significantly wider. For instance UK based Xennia’s X-Plore 8000 has a 280 mm width, Olympus’ OP-1cd is 316 mm wide and Nilpeter/FFEI’s Caslon has a 420 mm option, whilst French Impika’s iPress 600 is 474 mm. these appear to have crossover potential into more general print applications.

New Look Website for The Printing House Website – 15th July 2009

We’ve been working hard over recent months to try create a new look and new content for our flagship brand The Printing House Website. When you find some time, please take a look and feed back to us. Some of the new content includes A Guide to Preparing Print Ready Artwork and information about our Large Format and banner printing service.

We’re a bit sad and are so excited by our new site that we’re now rebranding Print Buying Direct, Golf Club Centenary Books and School Prospectus Made Easy – so keep an eye out – we’ll email when its available on line.

Keep watching all our sites as we are continually adding new content.

To be continued…

See part one of this blog on digital printing here. Also – what does the future hold for printing – part 1

All about the new Printing House Website

Order your Appointment Cards online at Print Buying Direct – prices from £13.50 for 100 cards printed in full colour. At print buying direct we are market leaders in the printing of appointment cards and can produce them for doctors, hairdressers, dentists, physio, beauty salons, nail technicians, garages, massage therapists – for anything really. Just visit our Appointment Cards web page for more information.

Our business cards are some of the best in the business – printed in full colour on our £200,000 state of the art digital press – you’ll be proud to hand out business cards that we produce for you. Our business card prices are also very cost effective – 100 full colour business cards for only £10!

Don’t forget we’re still running our Letterheads promotion – 2000 full colour letterheads (headed paper) for £125 delivered! We’ve been producing letterheads since 1991 for hundreds of customs as diverse as Bentley and Royal Mail.

See Part 12 of this blog on Print finishing, See also our Blog on Spot UV Varnishing

Print Buying Direct and School Prospectus Made Easy are both brands of parent company – The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK. Keep visiting both websites for details of our latest offers and promotions. For more information School Prospectus including School Prospectus Design or School Prospectus Printing (we also specialise in college prospectus) see our www.schoolprospectus.info website

Have a look at our Newsletters webpage for help and assistance with writing and designing your newsletter. It deals with, company newsletters, college newsletters, school newsletters and employee newsletters in particluar. Our blog often focuses on newsletters and we have a page which specifically helps with newsletters as a marketing tool.

TOP TIP: Add that feel of quality to your company brochure by first applying Matt Lamination then a Spot UV Varnish. The UV Varnishing actually ‘lifts’ your pictures to give them a glossy impact.

Our Digital Brochures (turn page technology) are really taking off now – get your brochure put online from only £15 per page.

One of the mainstays at Print Buying Direct is Leaflets. We are experts at Leaflet Design & Leaflet Printing

Check out our Banner Stands (pop up banners) only £99. Design service available.

Everything you need to know about Digital Printing – part 6 – 9th July 2009
The past three years have seen three new Japanese manufacturers join the digital colour production club. At Ipex 2006, Canon showed its long awaited entry, imagePress C7000VP. This offers 70 A4 pages per minute. Image quality is particularly good, with near litho appearance on gloss art – previously a weak point for toners.
At the same show, Konica Minolta impresses visitors with its bizhub Pro 7500, a high quality machine that promised a lower price than the equivalent DocuColor and the Canon but also achieved high print quality thanks to new toner technology.
In January 2008, Ricoh announced its first digital colour production printer, the Pro 900 and had started shipping this by the end of the year. Ricoh’s chairman and CEO Simon Sasaki outlined an ambitious strategy to capture a large share of the production colour market by 2010.
In fact, Ricoh has been steadily growing throughout the past decade, partly be developing its own colour and monochrome MFD printers and partly by acquisitions. In 2004, it bought Hitachi Printing Solutions, a manufacturer of high volume monochrome laser engines. In 2007, it reached an agreement with IBM to Printing Systems by 2010 – in the meantime the operation has been renamed InfoPrint Solutions and run as a joint venue. Also in 2007, Ricoh bought Danka Europe, a major reseller of copiers and digital printers, and followed this in 2008 with the purchase of Ikon, an even larger company with major interests in office printers, supplies and print management.
Oce entered the digital colour market in 2001 with the highly unusual CPS700 light production printer. This is a dry toner electro photographic engine but instead of the usual four transparent process colours, which overlap on the print, it uses seven solid colours (CMYK plus red, green and blue) which don’t overlap. Using solid colours means that the colour of the underlying substrate doesn’t affect the spectral reflectance of the toner, so the colour is always consistent and also matched from machine to machine with little need for colour profiling. The 25 page per minute CPS700 was later joined by the faster CPS900 but these remain fairly rare machines.

To be continued…

See part one of this blog on digital thinking here

Order your Appointment Cards online at Print Buying Direct – prices from £13.50 for 100 cards printed in full colour. At print buying direct we are market leaders in the printing of appointment cards and can produce them for doctors, hairdressers, dentists, physio, beauty salons, nail technicians, garages, massage therapists – for anything really. Just visit our Appointment Cards web page for more information.

Our business cards are some of the best in the business – printed in full colour on our £200,000 state of the art digital press – you’ll be proud to hand out business cards that we produce for you. Our business card prices are also very cost effective – 100 full colour business cards for only £10!

Don’t forget we’re still running our Letterheads promotion – 2000 full colour letterheads (headed paper) for £125 delivered! We’ve been producing letterheads since 1991 for hundreds of customs as diverse as Bentley and Royal Mail.

See Part 12 of this blog on Print finishing, See also our Blog on Spot UV Varnishing

Print Buying Direct and School Prospectus Made Easy are both brands of parent company – The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK. Keep visiting both websites for details of our latest offers and promotions. For more information School Prospectus including School Prospectus Design or School Prospectus Printing (we also specialise in college prospectus) see our www.schoolprospectus.info website

Have a look at our Newsletters webpage for help and assistance with writing and designing your newsletter. It deals with, company newsletters, college newsletters, school newsletters and employee newsletters in particluar. Our blog often focuses on newsletters and we have a page which specifically helps with newsletters as a marketing tool.

TOP TIP: Add that feel of quality to your company brochure by first applying Matt Lamination then a Spot UV Varnish. The UV Varnishing actually ‘lifts’ your pictures to give them a glossy impact.

Our Digital Brochures (turn page technology) are really taking off now – get your brochure put online from only £15 per page.

One of the mainstays at Print Buying Direct is Leaflets. We are experts at Leaflet Design & Leaflet Printing

Everything you need to know about Digital Printing – part 2 – 3rd July 2009
Electro photography
Dry toner digital printers are used at all levels from desktop personal printers and copiers, to general commercial production print, to high speed reel fed systems used for transactional work, direct mail and books.
The technical term for dry toner processes is usually xerography or electrograph.
Our two decades sweep of history saw the introduction of the first practical full colour digital devices. These laid the foundations of today’s ‘production’ printers as well as the introduction of very affordable desktop ‘multifunction devices’ (MFDs) and networked mid production departmental copier-printers.
Last year (2008), saw the 70th anniversary of the invention of the process by Chester Carlson, a US scientist and patent attorney who was determined to find a simple and clean way to make copies of documents. He called the invention xerography, from the Greek words xeros (dry) and graphics (writing), to distinguish it from the wet chemical mimeograph copying processes that existed at the time. His first xerographic copy let directly to today’s vast photocopier and digital toner printer product lines. It also led to the founding of Xerox, which has been a consistent pioneer and always a major name in the development and commercial supply of copiers and, for the past three decades, has pioneered digital laser printers in particular.
Although ‘xerography’ was intended to be a generic label and can refer to any similar dry toner process, its close association with the Xerox name means that rival manufacturers tend to prefer the term ‘electrophotography’.
Until the 1970s, all such machines were photocopiers that used optical systems to reflect and project the image of the original onto the photosensitive drum, which became statically charged and was able to pick up the toner and subsequently transfer it to paper for fusing. The invention of the laser allowed the imaging process to be controlled from a computer, giving rise to the first digital laser printers. Not all digital dry toner machines are laser printers; other imaging can include LEDs and more rarely, ion beams and magnetic imagers.

To be continued…

Order your Appointment Cards online at Print Buying Direct – prices from £13.50 for 100 cards printed in full colour. At print buying direct we are market leaders in the printing of appointment cards and can produce them for doctors, hairdressers, dentists, physio, beauty salons, nail technicians, garages, massage therapists – for anything really. Just visit our Appointment Cards web page for more information.

Our business cards are some of the best in the business – printed in full colour on our £200,000 state of the art digital press – you’ll be proud to hand out business cards that we produce for you. Our business card prices are also very cost effective – 100 full colour business cards for only £10!

Don’t forget we’re still running our Letterheads promotion – 2000 full colour letterheads (headed paper) for £125 delivered! We’ve been producing letterheads since 1991 for hundreds of customs as diverse as Bentley and Royal Mail.

See Part 12 of this blog on Print finishing, See also our Blog on Spot UV Varnishing

Print Buying Direct and School Prospectus Made Easy are both brands of parent company – The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK. Keep visiting both websites for details of our latest offers and promotions. For more information School Prospectus including School Prospectus Design or School Prospectus Printing (we also specialise in college prospectus) see our www.schoolprospectus.info website

Have a look at our Newsletters webpage for help and assistance with writing and designing your newsletter. It deals with, company newsletters, college newsletters, school newsletters and employee newsletters in particluar. Our blog often focuses on newsletters and we have a page which specifically helps with newsletters as a marketing tool.

TOP TIP: Add that feel of quality to your company brochure by first applying Matt Lamination then a Spot UV Varnish. The UV Varnishing actually ‘lifts’ your pictures to give them a glossy impact.

Our Digital Brochures (turn page technology) are really taking off now – get your brochure put online from only £15 per page.

One of the mainstays at Print Buying Direct is Leaflets. We are experts at Leaflet Design & Leaflet Printing.

The markets tomorrow – What does the future hold for printing? – Part 7 – 30th June 2009
There are several ways to obtain power. Pressing piezoelectric materials generates electrical current, so print a button with a ‘Press here’ message. Printed batteries will incorporate the power into the pack invisibly allowing electronics to be printed with a message using elctro activated ink or smart displays. An audible warning might be triggered using printed electronics reminding you to take your medicine or throw out food that is past its use by date. Packs will be able to reach out to potential buyers saying ‘I am genuine’. ‘I am in perfect condition’, ‘I am on special offer’, or ‘Buy me!’ It may send a voucher message to your mobile phone as you walk round a supermarket; this code can be entered as you put your PIN number in to pay. There will be more interactivity when you get the product home, or have it delivered through Internet shopping. Smart labels and packaging will lead to the smart devices. The intelligent fridge, linked to an online grocery could ensure you never run out of milk and standard items. This might link to new microwaves or ovens, the chip determining the correct settings to ensure it is thoroughly cooked, and the sell by data has not been exceeded. Detergent packs could tell the dishwasher or washing machine which cycle to use to minimise energy use.
Today packs have a barcode and a ‘best before’, usually inkjet printed. This is the result of retailer pressure for a standard identifier and governmental legislation on safety. Going forward, combating the rise of counterfeit goods will create some interesting opportunities when RFID chips are incorporated. As well as identifying the product a chip could do more. So, a medicine cabinet (that will also link in to our lavatory as healthcare gets really personal) will have a reader that knows when a drug is placed in it. The packs could use passwords that can be sent to or entered onto the pack for medical packaging. Beyond this, voice and other biometric feature recognition could be incorporated into storage containers such as medicine cabinets or fridges. These passwords might trigger an electrical which could release a memory material cap locking the device.

To be continued…

See Part 6 of this blog on the future of printing.

Order your Appointment Cards online at Print Buying Direct – prices from £13.50 for 100 cards printed in full colour. At print buying direct we are market leaders in the printing of appointment cards and can produce them for doctors, hairdressers, dentists, physio, beauty salons, nail technicians, garages, massage therapists – for anything really. Just visit our Appointment Cards web page for more information.

Our business cards are some of the best in the business – printed in full colour on our £200,000 state of the art digital press – you’ll be proud to hand out business cards that we produce for you. Our business card prices are also very cost effective – 100 full colour business cards for only £10!

Don’t forget we’re still running our Letterheads promotion – 2000 full colour letterheads (headed paper) for £125 delivered! We’ve been producing letterheads since 1991 for hundreds of customs as diverse as Bentley and Royal Mail.

See Part 12 of this blog on Print finishing, See also our Blog on Spot UV Varnishing

Print Buying Direct and School Prospectus Made Easy are both brands of parent company – The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK. Keep visiting both websites for details of our latest offers and promotions. For more information School Prospectus including School Prospectus Design or School Prospectus Printing (we also specialise in college prospectus) see our www.schoolprospectus.info website

Have a look at our Newsletters webpage for help and assistance with writing and designing your newsletter. It deals with, company newsletters, college newsletters, school newsletters and employee newsletters in particluar. Our blog often focuses on newsletters and we have a page which specifically helps with newsletters as a marketing tool.

TOP TIP: Add that feel of quality to your company brochure by first applying Matt Lamination then a Spot UV Varnish. The UV Varnishing actually ‘lifts’ your pictures to give them a glossy impact.

Our Digital Brochures (turn page technology) are really taking off now – get your brochure put online from only £15 per page.

One of the mainstays at Print Buying Direct is Leaflets. We are experts at Leaflet Design & Leaflet Printing.

The markets tomorrow – What does the future hold for printing? – Part 6 – 29th June 2009
Getting smart
More security will be built in to many print products to help brand protection, anti-counterfeiting and to keep ahead of the copiers. Many new products will be linked to the development of RFID technologies like credit cards, smart cards, and other printed security products. Biometrics will in corporated into passports, licences, smart cards and even tickets to prove the identity of the bearer. As well as chips, printed 2D barcodes and glyphs that can be unscrambled in readers to provide a picture of the owner, with a fingerprint or even a part of a DNA code that can be easily tested.
Smart labels will be a key component in future. These incorporate an electronic capability achieved through the laying down of conductive inks, polymers or semiconducting polymers onto the surface of the paper or board. The development of printable radio frequency identification (RFID) devices will be particularly important. Other capabilities being examined include displays that offer the opportunity for constantly updateable and information. Currently silkscreen is being used to lay down the thick layers, inkjet will become more prevalent as new fluids are developed and complex capability can be laid down in a single pass. Smart electronic displays and RFID will become common in packaging.
Stora Enso has several novel concepts and demonstrations. One is for automatic opening and re-closing packaging systems with a carton formed to mimic the mechanism of a flower opening. The pack can open or close under certain conditions depending on shape memory where materials revert to previous shapes under the influence of heat, light or electricity. This could create seals that open under certain environmental conditions, e.g. when a microwaveable meal reaches the correct cooking temperature or a drinks container is suitably chilled. Linking this with reversible glue systems, requiring electricity to reverse the polarity of surfaces and effectively switch to glue on or off makes easy opening and re-closing of a pack, increasing the life of a perishable item. So, instead of wrestling with a cap or seal you just touch a printed button. Such developments will provide dramatic improvements in the open ability/ close ability of packs, an issue that is growing concern to older people. ‘Senior friendly’ packaging will be easy to open but still take child safety into account.

To be continued…

See Part 5 of this blog on the future of printing.

Order your Appointment Cards online at Print Buying Direct – prices from £13.50 for 100 cards printed in full colour. At print buying direct we are market leaders in the printing of appointment cards and can produce them for doctors, hairdressers, dentists, physio, beauty salons, nail technicians, garages, massage therapists – for anything really. Just visit our Appointment Cards web page for more information.

Our business cards are some of the best in the business – printed in full colour on our £200,000 state of the art digital press – you’ll be proud to hand out business cards that we produce for you. Our business card prices are also very cost effective – 100 full colour business cards for only £10!

Don’t forget we’re still running our Letterheads promotion – 2000 full colour letterheads (headed paper) for £125 delivered! We’ve been producing letterheads since 1991 for hundreds of customs as diverse as Bentley and Royal Mail.

See Part 12 of this blog on Print finishing, See also our Blog on Spot UV Varnishing

Print Buying Direct and School Prospectus Made Easy are both brands of parent company – The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK. Keep visiting both websites for details of our latest offers and promotions. For more information School Prospectus including School Prospectus Design or School Prospectus Printing (we also specialise in college prospectus) see our www.schoolprospectus.info website

Have a look at our Newsletters webpage for help and assistance with writing and designing your newsletter. It deals with, company newsletters, college newsletters, school newsletters and employee newsletters in particluar. Our blog often focuses on newsletters and we have a page which specifically helps with newsletters as a marketing tool.

TOP TIP: Add that feel of quality to your company brochure by first applying Matt Lamination then a Spot UV Varnish. The UV Varnishing actually ‘lifts’ your pictures to give them a glossy impact.

Our Digital Brochures (turn page technology) are really taking off now – get your brochure put online from only £15 per page.

One of the mainstays at Print Buying Direct is Leaflets. We are experts at Leaflet Design & Leaflet Printing.

The markets tomorrow – What does the future hold for printing? – Part 5 – 26th June 2009
Mixing and matching
As consumers get used to using the Internet to book a flight, manage their finances, buy books, groceries and even a car they are irrevocably changed and print may not satisfy their requirements. They may choose electronic billing and stop receiving printed versions. Once lost this volume cannot be replaced. There are opportunities for print, however. Legislation demands records are kept, paper versions of bills and statements are accepted legally while there is no proof for electronic delivery. Much e-mail does not get to the intended recipient as spam filters and corporate firewalls filter much out, and often e-mails will be cursorily examined and quickly deleted. Brand owners and retailers will learn that consumers browsing a website do so anonymously and so a potential prospective customer may be lost. A filled in form or a phone request for a brochure provides the identity of a potentially interested customer. Concerns about government and Internet service companies recording e-mails, websites visited, instant messages, phone calls and texts may cramp the potential for electronic communication to print’s advantage.
Print can be a part of the mix and printers will become expert in helping customers reach their customers with tools developed from today’s technologies – e-mail, SMS messaging, RSS, blogs, wikis, mash-ups, memes, social networking, viral marketing and the next bight thing that does not exist yet. Google is set to change publishing and information irrevocably and it is just ten years old. Printers should know about these and find how their print products can fit in with them.
Print can help drive prospects to a site, with a personalised micro site engaging visitors with offers to them. A leaflet, direct mail or magazines can generate leads by offering a benefit for the consumer to register interest. The clichéd term ‘The overall customer journey’ is bandied about by marketers and print has a role in finding prospects, selecting prime suspects, converting them in more valuable customers. Printers need to understand how their customers are using the new technologies and see how they can help. They need to develop strategies to get into the concept and design stage of a campaign.
Some major printers, arvato is a great example, actively help customers optimise their communications while others pay lip service to the process but the tide is starting to change.

To be continued…

See Part 2 of this blog on the future of printing.

Order your Appointment Cards online at Print Buying Direct – prices from £13.50 for 100 cards printed in full colour. At print buying direct we are market leaders in the printing of appointment cards and can produce them for doctors, hairdressers, dentists, physio, beauty salons, nail technicians, garages, massage therapists – for anything really. Just visit our Appointment Cards web page for more information.

Our business cards are some of the best in the business – printed in full colour on our £200,000 state of the art digital press – you’ll be proud to hand out business cards that we produce for you. Our business card prices are also very cost effective – 100 full colour business cards for only £10!

Don’t forget we’re still running our Letterheads promotion – 2000 full colour letterheads (headed paper) for £125 delivered! We’ve been producing letterheads since 1991 for hundreds of customs as diverse as Bentley and Royal Mail.

See Part 12 of this blog on Print finishing, See also our Blog on Spot UV Varnishing

Print Buying Direct and School Prospectus Made Easy are both brands of parent company – The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK. Keep visiting both websites for details of our latest offers and promotions. For more information School Prospectus including School Prospectus Design or School Prospectus Printing (we also specialise in college prospectus) see our www.schoolprospectus.info website

Have a look at our Newsletters webpage for help and assistance with writing and designing your newsletter. It deals with, company newsletters, college newsletters, school newsletters and employee newsletters in particluar. Our blog often focuses on newsletters and we have a page which specifically helps with newsletters as a marketing tool.

TOP TIP: Add that feel of quality to your company brochure by first applying Matt Lamination then a Spot UV Varnish. The UV Varnishing actually ‘lifts’ your pictures to give them a glossy impact.

Our Digital Brochures (turn page technology) are really taking off now – get your brochure put online from only £15 per page.

One of the mainstays at Print Buying Direct is Leaflets. We are experts at Leaflet Design & Leaflet Printing.