Brian Auty picks up a sepcial-offer Cloverleaf tuna label on a skit with hundreds sitting in a new kitting department, and guarantees that RP Graphics is the only company in the world that can print the label in this way. This confident self-assessment is based not only on the applied variable data but also on an RP Graphics-written program of 2,000 kerning pairs so that, for example, cap-A looks finely detailed beside cap-T. It was developed in collaboration between the company's data-handling and graphics departments - with the word prepress purposely left out of the equation.
"I wouldn't profess to put data in the prepress," says Auty, RP Graphics' chief technology officer and a shareholder after a 1999 merger between Auty Printing and George Mazzaferro's firm. "Prepress is not really approparite any more, whether we make a plate or an iGen3 proof." |
TopLine Printing is buying words and phraes, running spiders and monitoring motions, to tie its web-to-print solution to all major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. It is part of a strategy shift that began seven years ago to get out of the trade printing business and become a retail focused company. The push relies heavily on the world of internet marketing and the sea change in print purchasing perhaps best described last month when tech giant Ericsson packaged-off its employees above the age of 35 with the intent on hiring nobody above the age of 30.
Scott Morris, general manager of TopLine's Canadian operations initiated the plan based on what he saw while working for Saturn Corporation, which rattled the car industry by being upfront and honest with consumers. He was with Saturn from the beginning (until GM pulled the division back in) and brought a fresh philosophy to TopLIne that was embraced by owner Grant Morris (not related)... |
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CP Printing recently completed a 15,000-piece job that, by law, had to be PMS 209, a burgundy-like colour for an unnamed client. It was a perfect run to push its HP Indigo 5000 press. The PMS had to be printed in very fine type, which tends to blur when applied in colour. CP avoided this only because it was able to mix inks, a definite HP Indigo advantage with commercial printers. The digital press can also exactly hit PMS 209, soething both the Xerox DocuColor and Kodak NexPress engines cannot do, despite being Pantone certified.
While all commercial offset printers can relate to a dot producing digital press, frew have considerd the main reason why this PMS 209 job was ideal for CP Printing. The job consisted of 200 distinct designs each with an average run of about 75 sheets. "It worked out beautifully," says Yuval Gurr. It fit perfectly with the company's evolving production plans to harness the micro print run... |
Wanting to move its brand closer to the corporate clientele it hopes to serve, Central Reproductions recently dropped its CMYK logo colour scheme for an appropriate 2-colour look, dominated by a reddish brown. The company has been retooling over the past two years, culminating last month with the installation of a Heidelberg XL 105. The new press platform ads an inch of print space, tons of speed - at 18,000 sheets per hour -- and a healthy dose of automation.
Before the press was bought, which is the first of its kind in Ontario (Montreal-based Compuset beat Central by a few weeks to claim the first in Canada prize), president Doug Snow evaluated the production of his existing Speedmaster and factored in what it might cost in upgrades over the next few years. When compared to the gains that he would make through the XL 105, the installation was a clear choice for him... |
