Welcome to the GAM Holiday Issue, starring Soft Proofing Santa and Santa’s Little Helper. This month, our lead article “Soft proofing” by Jason Lisi shows us how we can use soft proofing to collaborate; or, as I will call it for our holiday issue, the spirit of togetherness. The article discusses a variety of solutions which, without research would make you feel overwhelmed at the number of choices (similar to the feeling of standing in the middle of the toy isle trying to figure out what a five-year-old would play with for longer than 10 minutes). Fortunately, Jason demystifies the plethora of options for you. I will call him Soft Proofing Santa, though he won’t be delivering the software in the middle of the night.
If you are curious what else to get as presents (for your amazing boss, perhaps!) Diana Brown, our Santa’s Little Helper, has a very fun buyer’s guide this issue for presents that bring out the graphic arts professional in all of us. My personal favourite is the Pantone coffee mugs, which I coincidentally received from a great friend last Christmas in Pantone 363C and Pantone 186C. I really enjoyed Diana’s list, and encourage you to submit additional ideas of your own to add to the list. Perhaps a post-holiday report will be in order.
As for my gift to all of you, I thought that I could share two very insightful tidbits from the Print World show that I picked up from the 9 a.m. keynote sessions delivered by Frank Romano, Professor Emeritus, Rochester Institute of Technology and Bob Young, founder and CEO of Lulu.com, consecutively.
1) As consumers, our print needs have changed, so as printers we need to align with new opportunities. For example, packaging offers many new opportunities for growth – directory printing, not so much.
2) Become a friend to your competition. Whether you like it or not, new competitors will always surface. Figure out something you do really well, that you could provide as a service to your competitors. As an example, maybe you’ve nailed down how to handle data for variable data printing, which improves the prepress workflow for complex jobs. Instead of just selling complex jobs, sell the process to your competition by processing their files for a fee! This would work especially well if they are not local (because we have to be careful at improving a local competitor!).
I hope that you enjoy our holiday issue!
Wishing you and yours a very happy holiday. May your stockings be filled with Pantone cups!