The sun is shining, the scilla, tulips, and daffodils are adding a much-needed touch of cyan, magenta, and yellow to the landscape, and spring is everywhere you look. It’s a season of change and renewal—what better time than now for a change and renewal of our cover?
“It doesn’t look that different,” you might be saying. “The logo’s the same…the fonts look more or less as they did last month…” But have you looked at the cover of your boss’s issue? How about the guys’ in sales? Or the issue that gets delivered to the pressroom?
You’ve probably guessed it by now—it’s our second variable cover! I won’t say it was a breeze (particularly since I’m not the one doing all the variable work) but the second one is certainly a lot more relaxing than the first one. It’s an appropriate cover for this month’s issue, because several of our articles focus on what you can do to personalize your sales pitch to each of your customers. A personalized pitch is a win for both parties—you become irreplaceable to your customer, and the products you’re printing for them in turn generate greater returns for their business.
Mailing and fulfillment were one of the earliest areas to see personalized printing—but we’ve come a long way from a simple unique address label affixed to each of thousands of identical letters or parcels. Jeanette Clinkunbroomer profiles two successful mailing and fulfillment houses and gives us hard data from the Canadian Marketing Association. She also talks about the potential affects of the Do Not Call registry that is scheduled for national implementation in September of this year.
More directly applicable to variable print is another valuable review from Peter Dulis, who tackles the emerging market of high speed digital colour web presses. Peter profiles the HP Inkjet Web Press, Océ’s JetStream 2200, the Xeikon 6000, and Xerox’s 490/980 and describes their target markets. These target markets overlap somewhat but don’t seem to be directly competitive—it will certainly be interesting to watch this market develop, and Peter’s piece is a must-read for anyone looking to invest in this (still unproven, in many ways) technology.
Finally, just to vary things up a little, I’d like to draw your attention to Leo Thibault’s tension-filled piece on lithographic dampening, which appears on page 32. Leo gives a great overview that will inform those unfamiliar with the nuts and bolts of litho and will remind the old hands among our readers of some important tips.
Happy Spring!