Nic. Oud´s journey to the digital future of printing

Last week I received, among with a small number of others, a very special piece of printing, the first book produced in Europe on the Screen Truepress Jet520HD.
The book, The Journey, documents Nic. Oud´s jrouney to the digital future of printing. It looks like a successful journey and if the digital production printer is operational in November, the company residing in Heerhugowaard, will have a formidable tool to produce fast and affordable digital printing. Just like any other printer would do I first looked at what was wrong with The Journey. The only thing that I could find was the lack of detail in the higher end of the light spectrum in some of the photos and the – very well designed – text could have been a bit blacker for my liking.
What does stand out is the flatness of the pages which have, as happens with digital printing techniques which use too much heat or pressure, held their original shape.
Also the pastel tints in the well photographed Japanese images deserve a compliment. Remains the question: how much does this cost? En can Truepress´s printing compete with normal printing. For Nic. Oud this is perhaps not the most important question. He will use Truepress mainly for hyper personalised content and speed and unlimited possibilities of variable data are much more important than the cost for clients such as Heineken, Makro, Sanoma and T-Mobile.