Tools of the trade
It’s pretty easy to tell other people what to do. Looking in from the outside and offering suggestions is a universal human trait, exhibited by everyone from backseat drivers to magazine editors. The more difficult task, of course, is to offer specifics—moving beyond “hey, was that really the best lane?” to “okay, you need to exit on ramp 36A in 5.4 kilometres” and getting past “variable data is a growing field” to “if you want these results, you need this press, this workflow, and a new staff member in your IT department.”
Giving driving directions is of course much easier than advising print providers on how best to run their businesses; the variables in this industry are many, even if you’re only running traditional offset. With drupa approaching and manufacturers clamoring for coverage of their new products, it gets even harder, in some ways, to offer substantiative advice as to the benefits of press A vs press B or the best way to go about creating a variable data component of your business. But more options are also a good thing, and the announcements surrounding drupa give us extra chances to highlight, in this and following issues, some of the new tools of the trade that we think are well-suited to helping our readers grow their businesses.
Jeanette Clinkunbroomer discourses this month on “Printing the Big Picture”—her look at wide-format and signage printing. She talks with business owners—to see which tools they are using—as well as wide-format providers—to see which tools they would like you to use. And speaking of new tools, HP unveiled several new products and improvements to existing products at their pre-drupa showcase in Israel, including the new latex inks that Jeanette mentions at the end of her article. Slated to go head-to-head with solvent-based inks, latex inks might be just the tool for those of you wishing to bring an environmentally-conscious angle to your signage business. And, continuing on the variable theme of last month’s interview, Gail Nickel-Kailing speaks to Kevin Lanuke of Blitzprint to find out the direction that his company is going. Her questions and his comments should be just the tools you need to begin your own journey into relevance marketing and variable printing.
