Laurel Brunner
Improving the green credentials of the graphics business can take many forms. Most motivations for doing so are economic rather than philanthropic, however the future of the printing and publishing industries depends on both social and economic improvements. Digital press and print consumables manufacturers such as Agfa, Fujifilm and Kodak have done much to improve print’s environmental economics, cutting their technologies’ power usage requirements for instance. These three have massively improved plate processing and associated chemistries and materials recyclability. They have reduced the use of VOCs, and improved production efficiency with clever software and artificial intelligence. But when it comes to social programmes, Kodak is leading the way.
Kodak’s Print for Good initiative was announced earlier this year to promote print and encourage its use, primarily through an ambitious literacy programme. Print for Good operates in the inner cities of Columbus, Georgia and Rochester, New York in the US and is being rolled out in Houston and San Antonio in Texas. The programme has three components: a children’s author willing to provide free content, a printer willing, with Kodak’s support, to print the books, and a distribution mechanism. This could be a publisher or a local community organisation or agency able to make the books available to children and young adults.
In the US, research has shown that two thirds of students who cannot read by the time they are nine years old will end up in prison. The same research found that over 60% of prison inmates in the US are functionally illiterate. American middle-class communities have around fifteen books per child, but in impoverished areas that number drops to about one book for every 300 children. Worldwide
over 122 million young people, 60% of them women, are illiterate. Kodak’s Print for Good programme is about changing those downright shocking statistics, improving the Kodak brand and continuing in the company’s philanthropic tradition.
Print for Good provides books to young people to encourage them to read and engage with print. This is not only socially desirable, but it also encourages a future for print. The Print for Good programme also provides other geographies with a template that can be applied locally to help mitigate literacy problems. Kodak is supporting Print for Good with materials such as plates, and logistic support to help get the programme up and running. Printers are donating their presstime and paper costs. Publishers and community organisations are providing distribution mechanisms. Everyone is donating their administrative and project management support, which can carry a heavy overhead as no two situations are the same. Kodak is working on procedures that should help accelerate uptake and we are doing our best to spread the word. If you would like to participate in this programme, as an author, printer or publisher, please get in touch!
Laurel Brunner
The Verdigris project is an industry initiative intended to raise awareness of print’s positive environmental impact. It provides a weekly commentary to help printing companies keep up to date with environmental standards, and how environmentally friendly business management can help improve their bottom lines. Verdigris is supported by the following companies: Agfa Graphics, EFI, Epson, Fespa, HP, Kodak, Kornit,Ricoh, Spindrift, Splash PR, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.
Picture: demiddelstemolen.nl
Now does that sound silly or what? As if paper was not always undergoing reinvention, an Israeli technology company is claiming to have reinvented it. The premise is that paper needs to be reinvented, so that it better supports the circular economy. Having got over our initial befuddlement and confusion, we took a closer look. We found puff, but puff with purpose and a point. Sort of.
In fact the Israeli company’s story isn’t about reinventing paper, but rather encouraging people to use it more effectively. And of course the story’s about getting people to buy the Israeli company’s product. The REEP process is not a reinvention, but it is still quite clever. The REEP process hides or removes toner from paper, so that it can be reused. The process makes the surface of office paper rewritable and involves a special paper, a special laser that can erase the toner and a scanning device. This digitises documents so that they can then be saved in a secure cloud.
This isn’t really a reinvention of paper, but rather a new recipe for office paper that makes it deinkable using just a laser. However the REEP machine only works with toner and is intended for use in offices. This is not an industrial process, but rather a means of reusing office paper up to ten to twenty times. According to the inventor, Barak Yekutiely “to be resource efficient, we don’t need to reduce office printing – we want to print in a circular manner with exponentially less paper”.
Is this as sensible as recycling paper in an industrial process? As with most things environmental, there are serious questions relating to the environmental impact of the scanning/toner removal device, which is about the size of a normal multifunction printer. There are also questions relating to the production of this special paper, three reams of which the developers expect to serve 35 employees daily. There will also be an energy overhead, which may not be so very low. And then there is the cost and energy associated with the secure cloud storage, data backup and management, and data access.
There is no doubt that new ideas for making paper usage more efficient are welcome. If they improve the environmental impact of print processes even better. But we should not lose sight of the fact that paper has for many years mades a substantial contribution to the circular economy. Printing is already highly sustainable because of process automation and sophisticated materials science, and the fact that much of it relies on a renewable resource.
Laurel Brunner
The Verdigris project is an industry initiative intended to raise awareness of print’s positive environmental impact. It provides a weekly commentary to help printing companies keep up to date with environmental standards, and how environmentally friendly business management can help improve their bottom lines. Verdigris is supported by the following companies: Agfa Graphics, EFI, Epson,Fespa, HP, Kodak, Kornit, Ricoh, Spindrift, Splash PR, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.
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Picture: demiddelstemolen.nl
Now does that sound silly or what? As if paper was not always undergoing reinvention, an Israeli technology company is claiming to have reinvented it. The premise is that paper needs to be reinvented, so that it better supports the circular economy. Having got over our initial befuddlement and confusion, we took a closer look. We found puff, but puff with purpose and a point. Sort of.
In fact the Israeli company’s story isn’t about reinventing paper, but rather encouraging people to use it more effectively. And of course the story’s about getting people to buy the Israeli company’s product. The REEP process is not a reinvention, but it is still quite clever. The REEP process hides or removes toner from paper, so that it can be reused. The process makes the surface of office paper rewritable and involves a special paper, a special laser that can erase the toner and a scanning device. This digitises documents so that they can then be saved in a secure cloud.
This isn’t really a reinvention of paper, but rather a new recipe for office paper that makes it deinkable using just a laser. However the REEP machine only works with toner and is intended for use in offices. This is not an industrial process, but rather a means of reusing office paper up to ten to twenty times. According to the inventor, Barak Yekutiely “to be resource efficient, we don’t need to reduce office printing – we want to print in a circular manner with exponentially less paper”.
Is this as sensible as recycling paper in an industrial process? As with most things environmental, there are serious questions relating to the environmental impact of the scanning/toner removal device, which is about the size of a normal multifunction printer. There are also questions relating to the production of this special paper, three reams of which the developers expect to serve 35 employees daily. There will also be an energy overhead, which may not be so very low. And then there is the cost and energy associated with the secure cloud storage, data backup and management, and data access.
There is no doubt that new ideas for making paper usage more efficient are welcome. If they improve the environmental impact of print processes even better. But we should not lose sight of the fact that paper has for many years mades a substantial contribution to the circular economy. Printing is already highly sustainable because of process automation and sophisticated materials science, and the fact that much of it relies on a renewable resource.
Laurel Brunner
The Verdigris project is an industry initiative intended to raise awareness of print’s positive environmental impact. It provides a weekly commentary to help printing companies keep up to date with environmental standards, and how environmentally friendly business management can help improve their bottom lines. Verdigris is supported by the following companies: Agfa Graphics, EFI, Epson,Fespa, HP, Kodak, Kornit, Ricoh, Spindrift, Splash PR, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.
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A generous handful of graphics companies are off the grid when it comes to energy. They generally rely on solar power and biomass burners for their electricity and as such are in the vanguard. However they are not alone. A report jointly authored by the World Wildlife Fund and the Corporate Eco Fund takes a closer look at corporate renewable energy procurement. The work is based on an in depth survey of 37 Corporate Eco Forum members and signatories to the Renewable Energy Buyers’ Principles, representing various industries.
This is big corporate stuff and a far remove from the lives of the average graphics professional. However the Renewable Energy Buyers’ Principles together have combined revenues of over $1 trillion, so their intentions and efforts certainly do impact the little people. The motivation to procure renewable energy is mostly about money and leveraging such things as renewable energy credits from governments and local power purchase agreements. But still it can make a difference.
Governments make it easier for big corporates to incorporate renewables in their energy mix in order to bring them closer to GHG emissions reductions targets. Renewable energy targets get tighter with the passing of the years, however they are helping at least to improve environmental impacts, if not by very much. Probably a much bigger driver than financial incentives and altruism, is the desire to reduce costs and demonstrate climate change leadership.
It’s tempting to be a bit cynical about this sort of work. It seems to be too easy, too much a box ticking exercise, and in many cases for the contributors to Eco Forum survey, it is. However the companies have reported useful information, data that may be helpful for the average printing company considering a shift to renewables, with or without financial inducements. According to the report, wind power is the top source of renewable energy and the one with the shortest payback period. Those of you living in sunnier climes may question this, however companies investing in wind power are getting a return on their investment in under six years. That said, the price of solar photovoltaic panels has collapsed of late, making them extremely attractive as a power source, whatever the megacorps’ experience.
Graphics companies around the world, even in gloomy, grey places like Sweden and the UK should be looking into renewables. The investment into solar is easier and relatively inexpensive, and the return pretty swift. It may not be as fast as the return on a wind power investment, but it is likey to be cheaper and less risky in the first place. What are you waiting for?
Laurel Brunner
The Verdigris project is an industry initiative intended to raise awareness of print’s positive environmental impact. It provides a weekly commentary to help printing companies keep up to date with environmental standards, and how environmentally friendly business management can help improve their bottom lines. Verdigris is supported by the following companies: Agfa Graphics, EFI, Epson, Fespa, HP, Kodak, Kornit,Ricoh, Spindrift, Splash PR, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.
They say that nine tenths of anything is preparation. When it comes to graphics production projects, this maxim absolutely applies. The more thorough your preparation, the more effective your wide format digital print project will be, so the execution of any wild format project must be carefully planned. Consider everything about it – from how you want to express your ideas and the response you want, through to production, installation and removal. What happens to your ideas on a step-by-step basis is what workflow is all about.
Workflow what workflow?
The term gets bandied about in the graphics industry as if everyone knows and understands what it means. But the truth is that it means different things to different people, and although individuals may have similar ideas of what workflow is, those ideas aren’t necessarily the same. A designer sees workflow as a series of tasks that take an original idea, say a sketch or rough Illustrator outline, to something the client can consider. On the other hand, a prepress workflow refers to the tasks – such as preflight checking and colour management – that make sure that what is sent for output is accurate and correctly formatted for the destination imaging system. A press manager will consider how to set up the printing system to produce the most jobs efficiently, for instance with minimal changes of substrate.
The graphics industry has huge experience in managing digital workflows across all manner of applications from labels and packaging to newspapers. This experience comes from a long history in producing printing formes for conventional presses as well as digital print systems. Companies such as Agfa, Kodak and Fujifilm still produce printing plates for conventional presses, but they are also masters of highly-developed workflow systems for commercial print. Agfa has offered workflow management tools for many years. Agfa Apogee for the commercial sector was the first workflow system based on PDF. Agfa Asanté, which is based on Apogee, is the leading production management workflow system for wide format digital output.
Working with a knowledgeable service provider can make all the difference to your wild format project. At Athena Graph- ics in Belgium, managing director Ignace Cosaert, says “customers want to lower costs, decrease time-to-market and reduce the number of mistakes. The same goes for us, of course. So we have a team of four talented people who are constantly looking for ways to improve our processes through automation”.
Partnerships
Perhaps the most important thing to understand about workflow is that it is fluid, which is great because it lets you keep your options open. The bad news is that fluidity can sometimes make your particular workflow vulnerable to error. This is why companies such as HP and EFI have invested so much to establish strong partnerships with other developers, large and small. Agfa and other traditional graphics technology developers such as Fujifilm and Esko also work closely with a range of development partners.
EFI is a graphics market leader for wide format printers and inks, digital print servers and print management technologies. EFI’s Enhanced Hybrid Workflows are an integration of Agfa’s Apogee 10 with EFI Fiery Digital Front Ends (DFE). HP also offer a large library of options, so if you plan to print your work on an HP wide format device then use the HP SmartStream suite. The SmartStream Designer plug-in for Adobe Indesign, for instance helps with such things as image positioning and variable data placement. Esko, the partner of choice for the likes of Agfa, EFI and HP has brought its packaging expertise to the graphics industry. The company has a long history in enhancing standard tools to improve graphics production processes. The best known of these is probably the DeskPack plug-ins for Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. They turn basic desktop software into powerful design and prepress production tools.
The HP Latex 3500 has an output format of up to 3.2m wide and prints at up to 180m2 per hour. Getting your data wrong or being confused about what colours you will get, can lead to some expensive disappointments. Making sure the data is right in the first place, saves a lot of stress and anxiety.
The Job Definition Format
Several years ago we all got quite over-excited about the potential of the Job Definition Format (JDF) which was intended to simplify and improve workflow efficiency forever. The idea was to use XML and metadata to inform downstream processes in the workflow. Sadly, although there are many examples of JDF enhanced workflows, the majority of the graphics industry has been underwhelmed, particularly in the wide format sector. But the work done on JDF has not been in vain. After many years of effort, a cooperation has been established between the JDF camp and the International Standards Organisation (ISO).
ISO Metric
At its most recent meeting, the ISO technical committee responsible for graphics technology formed a new task force to create a new standard to assist workflow management. The purpose of this work is to make it easier for designers and creators of print media projects to describe what they expect their final printed piece to actually look like. It sounds too good to be true, but the ISO team is confident that they can use PDF combined with metadata as the foundation.
This is exciting work because it could very well remove most if not all of the uncertainty in communications between those inventing graphics projects and the people who actually do the production. The new ISO standard will define common document metadata that users can add to their PDFs. It’s early days yet, but the goal is to specify the metadata that helps content creators to get the results they want. A DFE will be able interpret that metadata and ideally check that production data match the expectation. If they do not, the exchanged content can be corrected.
This work is being led by Martin Baily, chief technical officer of Global Graphics, the leading PDF developer with support from Adobe, PDF’s original inventor. The work builds on the principles of the JDF specification and draws on the expertise of various industry groups working to improve PDF-based workflow management in Europe and the USA. Having a robust and inclusive ISO standard will bring together these efforts and should provide a tremendous boost to workflow efficiency.
Start right
But in order to add metadata to your files, you need to understand what will happen to your job once you are ready to turn it over for a print production. When you create the PDF, don’t just assume that the Acrobat settings from your last job are suitable for the current one, even if the jobs seem similar. And keep in mind that tools that create PDFs will usually revert to the last set of selected PDF settings. As for settings, you can usually trust Acrobat’s presets. Adobe has worked hard to make sure that the presets create good PDFs, tuned to meet the demands of the output path. If you prefer, you can create your own but still make sure to check that you have selected the right one when you create the new PDF. This is especially important for output in wide formats because – clearly – the cost of errors is so much higher than for small format work.
If you have limited experience in PDF creation for print, ask your service provider to give you a copy of their custom .joboptions file. You can use this information so that the PDFs you give them will have the right characteristics for accurate output. The .joboptions file specifies the various settings and output resolution the printer needs to get the best output possible for your work.
Workflow is about planning and working with tools that help you get the most out of your ideas and printing processes. In addition to the few examples provided here, there are many, many more examples of workflow tools. Explore what’s out there so that you turn production into a breeze, and can instead focus on your ideas and creativity.
Laurel Brunner
The Wild Format guides are intended to expand awareness and understanding of the craziness that can be created on wide format digital printing devices, from floors to lampshades and everything in between.
These guides are made possible by a group of manufacturers working together with Digital Dots.
This article is supported by Agfa, Efi (www.efi.com), Esko () and HP.
Together we hope you enjoy the articles and that you put into practise what you learn. If you want to talk about it, go to our LinkedIn group via this link.
Enjoy and Go Wild!
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The more we learn about environmental accountability, the more we realise that this is a massively complex topic. Everywhere we see clever ideas for improving the sustainability of the graphics industry, yet equally we see evidence of how far we have yet to go. How we progress as an industry, depends on how well we encourage companies to appreciate their environmental aspects, those things in the business likely to have an environmental impact. Only then can business owners and their customers start considering ways to make improvements. And this brings us to an interesting point: how does one quantify environmental aspects and impacts?The obvious answer is to do a Life Cycle Analysis, but what should the basis of such an analysis be? Is it the business, its products, its manufacturing processes? Where do you start? These questions take us into the realm of eco labels, which are awarded to confirm that a company meets strict environmental criteria. In order to be certified to a label such as the Nordic Swan or the Blue Angel, a full audit of every aspect of the business is required. To achieve certification the company has to be able to prove that it meets strict and prescribed environmental requirements, requirements specified by the eco label authority and owner. In the case of print for example, the Nordic Swan label can only be applied to printed matter that Nordic Swan says has “environmentally-friendly properties”. So far so vague.
The other difficulty for graphics professionals is that going for an eco label is extremely expensive. There is a massive industry underlying the quantification of environmental impacts and the certification of compliance to a particular label. This is part of the reason for sceptism on the part of printing company owners, that combined with a lack of alternatives. Printing and publishing professionals do not have tools to help them achieve eco label criteria. There are no documents explaining what they need to know about their business in order to qualify for an eco label. We see the need for some sort of environmental declaration specific to graphics technologies and graphics production.
Such a framework document would define the data requirements for assessing the environment impact of the organisation and of its products. The document would also outline the aspects of prepress, printing, post-press and process control that need to be considered, plus their environmental impacts. The document would also outline requirements for data accuracy, allocation, certainty, transparency, and so on. This tool would not specify how data should be collected, but rather what data should be gathered. Once collected, organised and fully reported, the data for an environmental declaration could be used as part of an eco labeling evaluation. This ought to encourage the graphics to further improve its environmental impact, and at a lower cost.
Laurel Brunner
The Verdigris project is an industry initiative intended to raise awareness of print’s positive environmental impact. It provides a weekly commentary to help printing companies keep up to date with environmental standards, and how environmentally friendly business management can help improve their bottom lines. Verdigris is supported by the following companies: Agfa Graphics, EFI, Epson, Fespa, HP, Kodak, Kornit,Ricoh, Spindrift, Splash PR, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.
The more we learn about environmental accountability, the more we realise that this is a massively complex topic. Everywhere we see clever ideas for improving the sustainability of the graphics industry, yet equally we see evidence of how far we have yet to go. How we progress as an industry, depends on how well we encourage companies to appreciate their environmental aspects, those things in the business likely to have an environmental impact. Only then can business owners and their customers start considering ways to make improvements. And this brings us to an interesting point: how does one quantify environmental aspects and impacts?
The obvious answer is to do a Life Cycle Analysis, but what should the basis of such an analysis be? Is it the business, its products, its manufacturing processes? Where do you start? These questions take us into the realm of eco labels, which are awarded to confirm that a company meets strict environmental criteria. In order to be certified to a label such as the Nordic Swan or the Blue Angel, a full audit of every aspect of the business is required. To achieve certification the company has to be able to prove that it meets strict and prescribed environmental requirements, requirements specified by the eco label authority and owner. In the case of print for example, the Nordic Swan label can only be applied to printed matter that Nordic Swan says has “environmentally-friendly properties”. So far so vague.
The other difficulty for graphics professionals is that going for an eco label is extremely expensive. There is a massive industry underlying the quantification of environmental impacts and the certification of compliance to a particular label. This is part of the reason for sceptism on the part of printing company owners, that combined with a lack of alternatives. Printing and publishing professionals do not have tools to help them achieve eco label criteria. There are no documents explaining what they need to know about their business in order to qualify for an eco label. We see the need for some sort of environmental declaration specific to graphics technologies and graphics production.
Such a framework document would define the data requirements for assessing the environment impact of the organisation and of its products. The document would also outline the aspects of prepress, printing, post-press and process control that need to be considered, plus their environmental impacts. The document would also outline requirements for data accuracy, allocation, certainty, transparency, and so on. This tool would not specify how data should be collected, but rather what data should be gathered. Once collected, organised and fully reported, the data for an environmental declaration could be used as part of an eco labeling evaluation. This ought to encourage the graphics to further improve its environmental impact, and at a lower cost.
– Laurel Brunner
The Verdigris project is an industry initiative intended to raise awareness of print’s positive environmental impact. It provides a weekly commentary to help printing companies keep up to date with environmental standards, and how environmentally friendly business management can help improve their bottom lines. Verdigris is supported by the following companies: Agfa Graphics, EFI, Epson, Fespa, HP, Kodak, Kornit,Ricoh, Spindrift, Splash PR, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.
Newspaper publishers should be doing much more to counter the perception that print is bad for the environment. Consumers associate printed newspapers with waste, but correcting this impression doesn’t seem to be a priority for the newspaper industry. This has to change, even though publishers may have other things on their minds like the precipitous decline in print sales.
Printed newspaper sales have suffered for obvious reasons, such as the rise in mobile computing and electronic media. And business models have changed in the face of competition from alternative news sources and new media. Newspapers whinge about falling revenues from print sales in developed markets, but mostly because they miss the meatier profit margins on printed ads. They are so much higher than for online ads, revenues for which are also slowing.
But print ad revenues have also declined because newspaper publishers have been unable to come up with compelling reasons for consumers to choose print. Too few newspapers have done enough to add value to printed editions. Even fewer use transmedia models, linking advertising to content delivered across integrated media. Tied with ad sales models that exploit a newspaper’s ability to taylor print products to specific communities of interest, ad profits can return. Publishers may be producing fewer printed copies of each edition, but overall a transmedia approach can lead to rising sales and less waste. It also leverages a newspaper’s unique relationship with its readership, as a media independent broker between brands and their target markets.
A bespoke transmedia model is ripe for exploitation by newspapers. Consider super highspeed inkjet imaging married to a conventional newspaper press chassis and printing upwards of 83,000 newspapers per hour, each fully customised for a specific set of interests. Data rates and print quality still have to improve substantially before newspapers can fully exploit transmedia technologies, but the technology is there to make a start. The model is good for business and good for the environment because it means less production waste and less post consumer waste. Optimised and leveraged for the target audience, printed content has higher value so it is more likely to be retained for longer.
So far newspaper professionals have done virtually nothing to counter the perception amongst consumers that printed newspapers are bad for the environment. It’s time for the the newspaper industry to take responsibility for its impact on the environment and to remind readers that printed newspapers consume a sustainable and recyclable resource.
Wholesale change isn’t easy, but newspaper publishers could start by considering environmentally coherent business models. They could also start by celebrating print’s environmental credentials.
Laurel Brunner
The Verdigris project is an industry initiative intended to raise awareness of print’s positive environmental impact. It provides a weekly commentary to help printing companies keep up to date with environmental standards, and how environmentally friendly business management can help improve their bottom lines. Verdigris is supported by the following companies: Agfa Graphics, EFI, Epson, Fespa, HP, Kodak, Kornit, Ricoh, Spindrift, Splash PR, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.
Founder Members of The Verdigris Project
Newspaper publishers should be doing much more to counter the perception that print is bad for the environment. Consumers associate printed newspapers with waste, but correcting this impression doesn’t seem to be a priority for the newspaper industry. This has to change, even though publishers may have other things on their minds like the precipitous decline in print sales.
Printed newspaper sales have suffered for obvious reasons, such as the rise in mobile computing and electronic media. And business models have changed in the face of competition from alternative news sources and new media. Newspapers whinge about falling revenues from print sales in developed markets, but mostly because they miss the meatier profit margins on printed ads. They are so much higher than for online ads, revenues for which are also slowing.
But print ad revenues have also declined because newspaper publishers have been unable to come up with compelling reasons for consumers to choose print. Too few newspapers have done enough to add value to printed editions. Even fewer use transmedia models, linking advertising to content delivered across integrated media. Tied with ad sales models that exploit a newspaper’s ability to taylor print products to specific communities of interest, ad profits can return. Publishers may be producing fewer printed copies of each edition, but overall a transmedia approach can lead to rising sales and less waste. It also leverages a newspaper’s unique relationship with its readership, as a media independent broker between brands and their target markets.
A bespoke transmedia model is ripe for exploitation by newspapers. Consider super highspeed inkjet imaging married to a conventional newspaper press chassis and printing upwards of 83,000 newspapers per hour, each fully customised for a specific set of interests. Data rates and print quality still have to improve substantially before newspapers can fully exploit transmedia technologies, but the technology is there to make a start. The model is good for business and good for the environment because it means less production waste and less post consumer waste. Optimised and leveraged for the target audience, printed content has higher value so it is more likely to be retained for longer.
So far newspaper professionals have done virtually nothing to counter the perception amongst consumers that printed newspapers are bad for the environment. It’s time for the the newspaper industry to take responsibility for its impact on the environment and to remind readers that printed newspapers consume a sustainable and recyclable resource.
Wholesale change isn’t easy, but newspaper publishers could start by considering environmentally coherent business models. They could also start by celebrating print’s environmental credentials.
Laurel Brunner
The Verdigris project is an industry initiative intended to raise awareness of print’s positive environmental impact. It provides a weekly commentary to help printing companies keep up to date with environmental standards, and how environmentally friendly business management can help improve their bottom lines. Verdigris is supported by the following companies: Agfa Graphics, EFI, Epson, Fespa, HP, Kodak, Kornit, Ricoh, Spindrift, Splash PR, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.
Founder Members of The Verdigris Project
The range of what’s possible with digital inkjet technology just keeps on growing. There are so many production options to choose from that it’s hard to know where to start. In fact, don’t start with production at all, start with something much more basic, like what you want to create in the first place. This article is a step-by-step guide to help you make informed choices about your project and getting the most out of the technology and your budget.
Once you have established your project objectives and budget, you need to decide on how you want your wild format print to look – and crucially how you want it to perform over time.
Baby steps
You can take many approaches to project design, depending upon your project constraints, such as the final viewing environment. What you present at a trade show, say bespoke garments or photo samples, will have very specific viewing and usage constraints compared to what you produce for a local retailer. Think about the difference between how you expect prints fixed to the side of buildings to perform compared to labels on artisan food packaging. Both extremes are possible but how you choose to proceed, depends on more than technology.
The colours in this image are particularly tricky so, if you are working on something as colour rich, make sure you choose a printing method that gets the most out of your colour data, especially if you want to print it bigger. © Hannah Brunner
Begin with your objectives and outlining what you want to achieve. Think about the budget available and the amount of time it will take to design, produce, print and install your project. What’s important for the work will depend on the specific performance criteria and installation constraints. For example, the design of an ambitious cityscape using building wraps will have to take into account elements such as planning and installation logistics, safety and regulatory compliance. Most of us won’t have the opportunity to festoon whole city blocks with artistic drapery however, so let’s look at the problem from a less lofty perspective.
Design choices
Any wild format project requires design, and design that works for the message and its objectives. It’s pointless filling an image with masses of detail that will be invisible when viewed remotely or under caked dirt, as is the case with a billboard or train graphics. Equally, you cannot scrimp on content if you are creating graphics for an art gallery or luxury goods outlet.
Consider how your design will appear on different surfaces and at different sizes, because you might end up printing it in different formats, such as a leaflet and a poster. Choose your colours so that you get the most out of both the substrate and from the printing method you intend to use. If your work is going to appear in multiple locations, consider a variable content design so that you can incorporate specific local information, such as a map or local services, when the file is printed.
Quality control
One of the biggest complaints the printing industry has when it comes to project planning, is that designers and marketers don’t think enough about colour. Sure they think about it when they are choosing colours and substrates, but they don’t necessarily think about how it is likely to behave in print production. Keep in mind that how you prepare your data files will play a big part in the colour quality of the output you get. Think about the choice of substrate, because the substrate is the single biggest factor influencing the appearance of printed colours. Choose a substrate that will perform in line with expectations for your wild format project and choose a printing method that works well with the substrate.
Choosing materials
The choice of materials obviously depends on the project constraints. If you are producing outdoor signage that has to last for a while, choose rigid PVC and inks that will last. You might want to consider crazy coloured textile wall coverings printed on a machine such as Mimaki’s JV400LX which adds orange and green to the basic CMYK latex inkset.
The project planning to complete this image would have involved some heavy safety considerations. Is it drawn or is it printed?
Printing options
The market is chockablock with different types of printing devices. Print service providers will be keen to produce whatever it is you want, but be wise in selecting the company. If you want to produce vehicle wraps, for instance, make sure you select a company with the kit and the nous to produce this type of work. HP and Mimaki offer various options, so you have choices. Base your decision on the performance of the print and how much it costs. Check out some samples before you commit, and make sure that the printed output will behave as you want.
Practicalities
In planning your wild format project, make sure you think it through fully. In the excitement of getting on with the design and maximising impact and results, it can be easy to overlook the details. The most common mistakes people make are in underestimating how long stuff takes to get done. Think carefully about time and what needs to be taken into account for every step of your wild format project.
Design and approvals can take forever to get complete signoff, so impose deadlines that everyone accepts for each stage of your project. Finding the right service provider for your wild format project may take longer than you think, even if you have someone in mind already. You need to ensure that the service provider has the right technology to produce your work, and that they can do so at a fair price. It always pays to shop around, so keep this in mind as it’s something that will impact your project execution.
The practicalities of printing can also take longer than you think, especially if your project involves steps such as special coatings that take time to dry. And don’t forget about the cutting and finishing. You may need to add grommets or have a specific time window for installations. All of these practical considerations, and more, will influence the success or failure of your project.
The annoying nitsby bitsy stuff can’t be ignored, but the good news is that you can trust the technology to produce the results you want. Wild format possibilities are yours to command!
Laurel Brunner
The Wild Format guides are intended to expand awareness and understanding of the craziness that can be created on wide format digital printing devices, from floors to lampshades and everything in between.
These guides are made possible by a group of manufacturers working together with Digital Dots. Together we hope you enjoy the articles and that you put into practise what you learn. If you want to talk about it, go to our LinkedIn group via this link.
Enjoy and Go Wild!
Lees verder....
The range of what’s possible with digital inkjet technology just keeps on growing. There are so many production options to choose from that it’s hard to know where to start. In fact, don’t start with production at all, start with something much more basic, like what you want to create in the first place. This article is a step-by-step guide to help you make informed choices about your project and getting the most out of the technology and your budget.
Once you have established your project objectives and budget, you need to decide on how you want your wild format print to look – and crucially how you want it to perform over time.
Baby steps
You can take many approaches to project design, depending upon your project constraints, such as the final viewing environment. What you present at a trade show, say bespoke garments or photo samples, will have very specific viewing and usage constraints compared to what you produce for a local retailer. Think about the difference between how you expect prints fixed to the side of buildings to perform compared to labels on artisan food packaging. Both extremes are possible but how you choose to proceed, depends on more than technology.
The colours in this image are particularly tricky so, if you are working on something as colour rich, make sure you choose a printing method that gets the most out of your colour data, especially if you want to print it bigger. © Hannah Brunner
Begin with your objectives and outlining what you want to achieve. Think about the budget available and the amount of time it will take to design, produce, print and install your project. What’s important for the work will depend on the specific performance criteria and installation constraints. For example, the design of an ambitious cityscape using building wraps will have to take into account elements such as planning and installation logistics, safety and regulatory compliance. Most of us won’t have the opportunity to festoon whole city blocks with artistic drapery however, so let’s look at the problem from a less lofty perspective.
Design choices
Any wild format project requires design, and design that works for the message and its objectives. It’s pointless filling an image with masses of detail that will be invisible when viewed remotely or under caked dirt, as is the case with a billboard or train graphics. Equally, you cannot scrimp on content if you are creating graphics for an art gallery or luxury goods outlet.
Consider how your design will appear on different surfaces and at different sizes, because you might end up printing it in different formats, such as a leaflet and a poster. Choose your colours so that you get the most out of both the substrate and from the printing method you intend to use. If your work is going to appear in multiple locations, consider a variable content design so that you can incorporate specific local information, such as a map or local services, when the file is printed.
Quality control
One of the biggest complaints the printing industry has when it comes to project planning, is that designers and marketers don’t think enough about colour. Sure they think about it when they are choosing colours and substrates, but they don’t necessarily think about how it is likely to behave in print production. Keep in mind that how you prepare your data files will play a big part in the colour quality of the output you get. Think about the choice of substrate, because the substrate is the single biggest factor influencing the appearance of printed colours. Choose a substrate that will perform in line with expectations for your wild format project and choose a printing method that works well with the substrate.
Choosing materials
The choice of materials obviously depends on the project constraints. If you are producing outdoor signage that has to last for a while, choose rigid PVC and inks that will last. You might want to consider crazy coloured textile wall coverings printed on a machine such as Mimaki’s JV400LX which adds orange and green to the basic CMYK latex inkset.
The project planning to complete this image would have involved some heavy safety considerations. Is it drawn or is it printed?
Printing options
The market is chockablock with different types of printing devices. Print service providers will be keen to produce whatever it is you want, but be wise in selecting the company. If you want to produce vehicle wraps, for instance, make sure you select a company with the kit and the nous to produce this type of work. HP and Mimaki offer various options, so you have choices. Base your decision on the performance of the print and how much it costs. Check out some samples before you commit, and make sure that the printed output will behave as you want.
Practicalities
In planning your wild format project, make sure you think it through fully. In the excitement of getting on with the design and maximising impact and results, it can be easy to overlook the details. The most common mistakes people make are in underestimating how long stuff takes to get done. Think carefully about time and what needs to be taken into account for every step of your wild format project.
Design and approvals can take forever to get complete signoff, so impose deadlines that everyone accepts for each stage of your project. Finding the right service provider for your wild format project may take longer than you think, even if you have someone in mind already. You need to ensure that the service provider has the right technology to produce your work, and that they can do so at a fair price. It always pays to shop around, so keep this in mind as it’s something that will impact your project execution.
The practicalities of printing can also take longer than you think, especially if your project involves steps such as special coatings that take time to dry. And don’t forget about the cutting and finishing. You may need to add grommets or have a specific time window for installations. All of these practical considerations, and more, will influence the success or failure of your project.
The annoying nitsby bitsy stuff can’t be ignored, but the good news is that you can trust the technology to produce the results you want. Wild format possibilities are yours to command!
Laurel Brunner
The Wild Format guides are intended to expand awareness and understanding of the craziness that can be created on wide format digital printing devices, from floors to lampshades and everything in between.
These guides are made possible by a group of manufacturers working together with Digital Dots. Together we hope you enjoy the articles and that you put into practise what you learn. If you want to talk about it, go to our LinkedIn group via this link.
Enjoy and Go Wild!
Lees verder....
Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) is expensive, takes a long time and can be fiendishly complex. Companies who undertake it generally do so in order to demonstrate the environmental credentials of their product or service. But there are other more nuanced reasons for doing LCA, such as providing proof points for marketing statements and guidance for product designers and engineers. An LCA can also help demonstrate regulatory compliance and be an aid to sales and marketing projects. It’s obviously a useful tool for carbon offsetting and for carbon credits.
HP Indigo has done an LCA for a flexible coffee pouch printed using three different printing methods: the HP Indigo 20000 digital press, Central Impression (CI) Flexo and gravure. The goal of the study was to provide data that would help HP show how the HP Indigo 20000 digital press, positioned in the market for packaging applications, stacks up against the analogue competition. There’s a lot to play for because digital print methods currently account for only a teensy share of a market HP estimates will be worth $114 billion by 2020.
The study was conducted by EarthShift Global, a specialist LCA company, following ISO 14040 and ISO 14044. These standards outline requirements for comparative LCA studies. The functional unit for the study is a coffee pouch made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and printed on all exterior surfaces.
The conclusions consider the environmental impact for 3,000m2 and 5,000m2 of printed material. These quantities of print are not necessarily typical in the current market for flexible packaging printing, which has to support very large runs so most of it’s still produced with CI flexo and gravure. But today’s model is changing and run lengths are falling. Brand owners want closer engagement with their target buyers, so they demand faster time to market for a growing range of Fast Moving Consumable Goods (FMCG). Increasingly they want to be able to customise products for different sectors, geographies and seasons. Customised packaging for FMCG, only possible with digital printing, can yield consistently high response rates which brand owners love. These are powerful arguments for using of digital printing over conventional methods, which lack digital printing’s timeliness and flexibility.
Pouches printed on the HP Indigo 20000 had the lowest environmental impact for quantities up to 5,000m2. This LCA demonstrates that digital printing offers a compelling alternative to conventional analogue methods, with the added benefit of producing highly effective bespoke packages. Equally important is the fact that digital printing has a much lower environmental impact overhead than gravure or flexo printing. It is the way forward for brand owners and for the environment.
Laurel Brunner
The Verdigris project is an industry initiative intended to raise awareness of print’s positive environmental impact. It provides a weekly commentary to help printing companies keep up to date with environmental standards, and how environmentally friendly business management can help improve their bottom lines. Verdigris is supported by the following companies: Agfa Graphics, Digital Dots, EFI, Fespa, Heidelberg, HP, Kodak, Ricoh, Splash PR, Unity Publishingand Xeikon.
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