You have in your hands the product of many meetings and planning sessions.
The original idea for our variable cover came from our editorial board member George Mezzaferro, of RP Graphics Group. I had a meeting with Tony Karg from Fujifilm, and he suggested that we do a variable cover rather than write about variable printing, to show the industry what can be done.
I would like to thank all of our partners who made this happen: Xerox, Fuji Film, Terminal Van Gogh, (especially Ben Passmore for all the hours he put in on the data side), Alive Pro Studios.com, RP Graphics Group, Data Business Solutions, and last but not least RB Trade Plus Printing Ltd. John Zarwan informed me that this is the first time a variable cover with ads has been printed for a magazine.
In the midst of all this variable planning, we also found time for a trip to Graph Expo—see Catherine Wiebe’s article on page 26.
In one of the sessions at Graph Expo’s Executive Outlook, they gave a ranking of the percentage of the worldwide print market for different countries, and Canada came in at number 8 in 2006, slipping to number 10 in their projections for 2011. They estimated we would have 10% growth between 2006 and 2011, and projected 60% growth for China and 73% growth for India.
All in all Graph Expo was a good event. The PIXI Awards were again a great night and our Canadian Printers came home with many awards. Blitzprint from Calgary in the Digital Books and Manual catalog came second worldwide. Best use of Xerox supplies went to Imprimerie L’Empreinte of St. Laurent Quebec. An honorable mention went to T & M Graphics and Printing Inc. from London Ontario and Rich Bassett from Bassett Direct in Markham Ontario also received an honorable mention. Congratulations to all the Canadian winners—you made us proud.
Graphics Canada is being held from November 8 through 10 at the International Centre in Toronto. Graphic Arts Magazine will be at booth 2011 at the entrance to Hall 2. Come down and examine our variable cover and take the opportunity to win our grand prize—more information will be available in the show issue.
As always stay positive and stay focused.
Joe Mulcahy