Letters, feedback, get it off your chest: 31 January 2008

25 January 2008

The letters keep rolling in this week. If you've got something to say, don't be backwards in coming forwards; we want to hear it!

I would argue that the conception of NGP was more to do with storm marketing rather than 'glacial pace of the development by CIP4'. The commercial prospect for certain companies was just too much for them to resist in order to setup NGP and storm market the CIP organisation, this in itself has probably put back job based manufacturing more than anything else for the print industry.

JDF intergation takes more than glitzy marketing, it takes a great deal of technical information, exhaustive testing and continued R&D, the only way to achieve this is through a central and independent organisation. It is good to see that this is now the way forward but very sad to see that we have lost many years as an industry due to the persistence of an NGP organisation funded by a 'sugar daddy'.

Name and Address Withheld

Cadbury and Darrell Lea take another bite into colour debate

It would appear to me as an outsider that Cadburys are using stand over tactics to squeeze the little fellow out of a market that should be left to the consumer. I have visited the Cadburys factory, and in my opinion , the colour varied immensely . I fully support Darrel lea in their efforts to produce product in any shade they believe will sell their product. At no stage would I personally go looking for a product by colour, and I think I share the opinion of the larger population. I employee approximately 100 people, and we would be considered small business. The legal costs in fighting a challenge, instigated by a huge organisation (Cadburys) would send me to the wall.

My good luck, and support, goes to Darrel Lea, and I hope they are successful.

Jim langby
Cardboard Containers (Aust.) Pty. Ltd.

drupa - Jeff Jacobson comes out swinging at media conference

Presstek is stuck with a losing strategy in connecting the DI concept with
short run printing. DI actually has no direct relationship with short run
capability and trying to move it to more and larger presses is a dead end
road. At least until true switchable plates are developed.

DI is like the stone in the old "Stone Soup" fable. It is not the stone
that makes the soup so good but all the extra ingrediants that the foolish
villagers add. The new generation of DI presses work for short runs, not
because of the DI capabilities but due to the waterless system that has less
variation than the conventional, a smaller roller train (ink storage) than
larger presses and due to the acurately presettable ink fountain keys which
have usually not existed on small presses before.

Short run capability is more related to press design. The Anicolor press is
probably not the future of press design but it does show that for short run
printing, DI is not required nor is waterless.

Erik Nikkanen
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Designers bring barcodes back for business
It's always a problem and unsightly to have the bar code showing.

I am of the belief that a bar code should be heard and not seen - that it -
heard when it is scanned at the checkouts.

I am not in favour of having the bar code as part of the design, but I
welcome the challenge to design something that includes the bar code in the
visual appeal of the concept.

Kind regards.

Alexandro
Art Director
Sinnott Bros Creative

University of NSW print contract goes up for grabs

C Parker,

Yes I remember those days oh too well!

Inhouse printing and publishing is still strong but as always we constantly battle the "outsourcing" trends.

Even the best run and prepared inhouse units can fall to this "not a core business" thinking and I think it is that constant threat that causes many inhouse print rooms to be run highly efficiently and to be innovative in the way they operate.

The current financial trend to short term cost cutting to increase profits rather than long term investment in service and quality are not just affecting print rooms but many service-orientated departments, IT, human resources etc. Unfortunately this current thinking seems to be the favourite amongst senior management.

We can only soldier on and do the best we can.

John Kirk

It's hip to make the trip to dip into the Pip - Print 21 magazine article

Greetings from the UK.

This is an excellent article that really captures the essence and scale of drupa 08.

Andrew Brown
Corporate Affairs Director
British Printing Industries Federation

Doggett Paper turns a new page in South Australia

Nice work Ken, who called on me as a rep more than 40 years ago.

Kind regards

Ken Pieter Eveleens