Category: Print Media

Graph Expo & DMA2012: A tale of two shows

Both the premiere print trade show and the top direct marketing conference were held in October this year. I had the fortunate opportunity to attend these two shows back to back: Graph Expo in Chicago on October 7-10 and DMA2012 in Las Vegas on October 13-18. As I walked the exhibit spaces and attended meetings, presentations and other gatherings, I saw important similarities and differences between these two events. Each in their own way illustrated how the graphic arts and direct marketing industries are being impacted by digital, social and mobile media technologies. They also revealed the complexities and difficulties facing every organization in our era of data-driven marketing and communications.

The mood among presenters, exhibitors and attendees at both shows was one of cautious optimism. The ongoing perfect storm of economic downturn combined with rapid technological change was on everyone’s mind. Both shows were devoted to providing answers and solutions to the pressing problem of the day; how can business owners and decision makers achieve success by more effectively serving client needs.

One way to compare these events is to look at the numbers. Since the figures for the 2012 shows have not yet been published, I will use the numbers from last year:

Event              Attendees      Exhibitors    Conf. Sessions
Graph Expo      20,000+          490+            50+
DMA2011         8,500+           350+            200+

With an emphasis on technology demonstration, Graph Expo is primarily about the equipment needed to accomplish marketing and communications objectives. And with an emphasis on conference sessions, DMA2012 (Direct Marketing Association) is focused on programs that educate and inform its audience about the processes needed to prepare and analyze initiatives. GraphExpo is for service companies that buy systems for the execution of programs. DMA2012 is for marketing companies that buy tools and solutions for the conceptualization of programs. Taken together, the two represent a continuum of the entire marketing and communications loop; where the one ends the other picks up.

These characteristics can also be seen by the way the event organizers describe themselves to their audience:

Graph Expo: “Graph Expo is the year’s largest and most exciting display of ‘live’ running equipment in the Americas. Watching a machine run and participating in a demonstration teaches you things you just can’t learn by sitting in a conference room or looking at a brochure. This show is a problem-solving adventure designed to help you make informed purchasing decisions.”

DMA20212: “The content at DMA2012 will deliver real-world solutions you can use immediately, as well as strategic guidance to help you plan for 2013. You’ll find an inspiring line-up of key thought leaders and innovators from the world’s leading companies. These gurus will educate and inform you on the latest trends:

  • optimizing content across channels
  • monetizing social media
  • integrating media according to customer preference
  • leveraging real-time analytics for daily decision making”

I arrived at Graph Expo on Sunday, October 7 and entered the expo floor when it opened at noon. Along with everyone else, I noticed immediately the prominence of the manufacturers of digital printing technologies, as was the case in last year’s show. Canon, Xerox, HP, Fuji, Kodak and others have taken over the largest booths in the show. In previous years, these booths were occupied by Heidelberg, KBA, Komori and Mitsubishi. Although Heidelberg stood out by having a large space with many machines on display, gone are the days of GraphExpo as a showcase of large and loud offset printing machinery.

Benny Landa speaking at the InfoTrends breakfast at GraphExpo

On Monday morning October 8, I attended an InfoTrends breakfast meeting that featured a talk by Benny Landa, the inventor of digital printing (he launched the Indigo press in 1993). Landa spoke about what he called the “economic depression of the printing industry.” As he reviewed the new printing technique his company has developed (nanography), he explained that the “98% of the printing being done today” is static, non-variable data printing. Since much of this printing is not profitable, it means that printing companies are unable to invest in new technologies.

Chris Anderson delivering the opening keynote at DMA2012

My visit to the DMA2012 Conference began by attending the opening keynote on Monday, October 15. The featured speaker was Chris Anderson, editor of Wired magazine and author of the business book “The Long Tail.” Anderson spoke about the implications of “big data” for marketing organizations. Big data is the ever-growing mountain of information about our lives; companies like Google and Facebook are accumulating big data about our online and offline activities, preferences and habits. The challenge facing marketers is how best to use this information since it is not structured and does lend itself to traditional analytical tools and methods. Anderson said that big data is a challenge to traditional marketing models.

From this brief report, it is evident that we are passing through an exciting time in our industry; we are well into the transition from the traditional, analog world of yesterday to the data-driven, digital world of tomorrow. However, the path forward is not obvious; marketing organizations and their service providers are facing a multiplicity of challenges. Among the keys to success in this rapidly shifting environment is taking advantage of events like Graph Expo and DMA2012. In this way, we can grasp the fundamental trends of development, learn from our peers and prepare our own organizations to meet the new demands of our clients.

Between papyrus & flexible e-paper displays: Two millennia of paper

We often take paper for granted. When searching for a dollar bill, filling up a fountain drink cup or moving a leaf bag to the curb, do we think about paper? Probably not. We are focused on the useful purpose of these daily items and don’t have time to stop and think about how they are made or what they are made of.

Christian religious text written on papyrus

Paper in all its different forms, qualities and applications has been around for a very long time. Most commonly, paper is thought of as a medium for the written or printed word. This is natural since paper—the word is derived from the Latin term papyrus—was developed as a writing surface 1,800 years ago by the Chinese to replace wood and bamboo scrolls.

The papermaking process—basically unchanged since Ts’ai Lun invented it in 105 AD—is a marvel of human ingenuity. Distinct from the papyrus of ancient Egypt, where thinly cut plant stalks were woven and laminated together, paper is the reduction of a raw material to individual fibers and their liquid suspension onto a mat or sheet.

With today’s instant global communications and world travel, it might seem strange that it took 500 years for papermaking to leave China and arrive in Japan and nearly 1,000 years for it to reach Europe. Nonetheless, paper’s global growth and development is an important chapter of world history.

  • In the seventh century, the Japanese were the first to recycle and repulp paper. In 750 AD, after a battle between the Chinese and the Muslims in what is now Uzbekistan, a group of Chinese prisoners revealed their secrets to their Middle Eastern captors. Once the Muslims began making paper, they went on to develop water powered stamping/hammer mills for the pulping process.
  • Papermaking entered Europe through the Muslim Moors of southern Spain in about 1100 AD. At that time, most European documents were recorded on parchment, a writing surface of sheepskin or vellum from calfskin. Since Europe was majority Christian and it was the time of the Crusades, the papermaking techniques of the Moors were not discovered by Europeans until after the military campaigns were concluded in the south. Once the Vatican was exposed to the wonders of papermaking, Italy emerged as the primary producer of paper in Europe.
  • In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the center of papermaking moved from Italy to France when the craft was encouraged by the monarchy. Just as demand for handwritten documents was on the rise, metallurgist Johann Gutenberg invented the mechanical methods of type setting and printing in Mainz, Germany in 1450. As the printing press spread throughout Europe, the volumes of paper being produced by the mills in France and Italy grew exponentially.
  • By the eighteenth century, papermaking had moved largely to Germany and Holland due to the social and political instability in France. Meanwhile, the technology of the paper industry was undergoing a transformation brought on by the emergence of manufacturing throughout Europe. These are the same industrial developments that impacted printing presses; iron in place of wood; steam in place of manpower or other natural forces such as wind and water.
The Fourdrinier paper machine and portrait of Nicholas-Louis Robert
  • In 1800, a Frenchman named Nicholas-Louis Robert patented an invention that converted papermaking into a mass production industry. Robert’s paper machine had a continuous wire screen upon which the slurry was poured so that the excess water would pass straight through it. The paper in formation was progressively dried by a series of felt rollers until it was solid enough to be wound onto a roll. Thus, paper no longer needed to made in individual sheets.
  • Several years later, Robert’s invention was sold to the Fourdrinier brothers of London where they constructed a much larger version of it. In 1812, the first Fourdrinier—the name associated with Robert’s invention and remains the primary method for papermaking to this day—machine was started up in a mill near Two Waters, England. Later, cylinders for pulp transport, drums for drying and techniques to prevent ink absorption into the fibers of the paper (sizing) would modify the Fourdrinier system.
  • By the mid nineteenth century, the center of papermaking moved to America and played an important role in the growth of newspaper publishing around the time of the Civil War. Up to this point, the fiber for papermaking—especially in Europe—came from the fabric in rags. But with the vast forests of North America, wood fiber quickly became the source of paper pulp and groundwood the essential raw material for the newsprint industry.
  • In the twentieth century, as printing technology moved from black and white letterpress to full color offset lithography, coated papers were developed. The papermaking process evolved from offline to inline coating systems. Today, the pulp and paper industries worldwide are going through a transformation born of the global economy and the shifting of paper consumption from west to east. According to industry data, paper consumption in the advanced world is falling rapidly—brought on by electronic media and recycling practices—while paper consumption in the developing world is rising even more rapidly. In 2009, for example, paper consumption in China surpassed that of the United States for the first time.
Text displayed on Gyricon e-paper and Nick Sheridon

While paper remains the number one media for publishing, electronic and online alternatives have been in development and grown rapidly over the last several decades. In the 1970s, Nick Sheridon at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) developed the world’s first electronic paper, called Gyricon. It consisted of microscopic polyethylene spheres with black on one side and white on the other embedded in a silicon sheet. With the appropriate electronic charge this e-paper could be used over and over again to display an unlimited number of different images much like a computer monitor.

LG’s six inch flexible e-paper display

In 2007, Amazon began marketing the Kindle e-book reader based on a principle similar to Sheridon’s invention. The Kindle emulates the visual characteristics of book paper because it relies upon reflective light as opposed to the transmissive backlighting of computer displays. Although these technologies lack the surface flexibility of paper, there are developments underway that will soon bring that attribute to electronic publishing. For example, in March of this year, LG unveiled the world’s first commercially available six-inch e-paper display that can be bent at an angle of up to 40 degrees.

While good old-fashioned paper will be around for a long time—ensured by its utility, durability, recyclability and cost—the one sector where we can now visualize its decline and disappearance is in the publication of books, magazines and newspapers. Perhaps by that time we will better appreciate the miracle of paper and no longer take it for granted.

William Blake: 1757 – 1827

20120726-181057.jpg
William Blake, November 28, 1757–August 12, 1827

William Blake is well known as an English poet and painter. During his lifetime he was not recognized for his genius; but today Blake is viewed as a significant and early figure of the Romantic period of European culture. He was one of the most brilliant representatives of the creative movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries that emphasized the free expression of the feelings of the artist in his works.

William Blake was born on November 28, 1757 in the Soho district of London. He was the third of seven children, two of whom died in infancy. His father was James Blake, a London hosier, and his mother was Catherine Wright Armitage Blake. Since William exhibited a love of art at an early age, his parents enrolled him in drawing classes and elected to educate him on other subjects at home.

At age 14, William was apprenticed to the engraver James Basire of London for a seven-year term. At the end of this training, Blake emerged as a skilled engraver but he chose to enroll as an art student at the Royal Academy instead of pursuing a professional career at this time.

In his years at the Academy, William Blake developed his particular creative style in opposition to the trends of the time, especially the popular extravagance of the Baroque works of Peter Paul Rubens. Blake was drawn to the Classical period and the style and precision of Michelangelo and Raphael. Some of Blake’s early paintings were exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1780 and 1808.

William’s gift of verse was also evident in his youth. A volume of his first poetry called “Poetical Sketches,” published by friends in 1783, contains lines that he had written as early as 1768 when William was only 10 or 11 years old.

Throughout his life, beginning at age 4, William claimed to have experienced visions. These apparitions were often of a spiritual and religious nature and formed the basis of his literary and visual creations. It was this mystical behavior that earned him a reputation of being an unstable man among his contemporaries. In fact, the noted poet William Wordsworth is quoted in a biography of Blake as having said, “There is something in the madness of this man which interests me more then the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott.”

William Blake was married to Catherine Boucher in 1782 in St. Mary’s Church, Battersea. Although Catherine was illiterate—she signed their wedding contract with an “X”—William taught her to read and write and later trained her as an engraver. Catherine remained with William to the day of his death and she proved to be invaluable to him, helping to print his illuminated works and maintaining his spirits through a number of crises.

The frontispiece of William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence & of Experience” published in 1826.

Due to his posthumous acclaim in the literary and visual arts, Blake is not as well known for his work as an engraver and, in particular, his innovative contributions to the graphic arts. Aside from the spectacular beauty of his print work—his hand-illustrated series of epic and lyrical poems “Songs of Innocence” (1789) and “Songs of Experience” (1794) being among the most original and stunning prints ever produced—William invented the technique known as relief etching. This is the method that is associated with the illuminated printing of his most important work.

The previous method of engraving exposed the images and text to acid and, therefore, the copper plate was recessed in those areas and the transfer of ink to paper took place with the intaglio method. Beginning in 1788, at the age of 31, Blake began his experiments with relief etching where the text of the poems was applied to copper plates with pens and brushes using an acid-resistant medium. He then etched the plates, dissolving the untreated copper and leaving the design to stand in relief. The pages printed from these plates were hand painted in water colors and then stitched together to finish the book.

Due to the lack of popularity of his own creative output during his lifetime, Blake took to commercial work to make a living. Some of the books that he illustrated are: “Night Thoughts” by Edward Young, “The Grave” by Robert Blair, “Paradise Lost” by John Milton, “The Book of Job,” “The Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyon and “The Divine Comedy” by Dante. The last two of these remained unfinished when Blake died in 1827.

“Job’s Evil Dreams” from William Blake’s illustrations of The Book of Job.

Among his original works, some of the more popular titles are “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” “Visions of the Daughters of Albion,” “The First Book of Urizen,” “Milton, a Poem” and “Jerusalem, The Emanation of the Giant Albion.” The preface to the last of these contains the well known verse “And did those feet in ancient time … ” that was later composed as a hymn called “Jerusalem” and became a British national anthem.

William Blake died in his house on August 12, 1827 at age 69 in the midst of his work. Living in near poverty, Catherine borrowed the money needed for the funeral of her loving husband. The service was attended by a small group of his closest friends. Today, a monument marks the approximate location of the remains of William Blake and his wife—Catherine died four years later—at Bunhill Fields in London.

William Blake lived at a time of great transformation in society; the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution. To some extent his work reflects a deep emotional reaction to the coldness of those times and a longing for a simpler and more humanitarian world. However, despite his justified anger toward the socially negative impact of science and technology at the turn of the nineteenth century, Blake made a colossal contribution to art in its literary, visual and, some would say, musical forms.

Had Blake lived in our day, he would no doubt have found in the technology of the personal computer an outlet for his visionary, mythical and humanistic creative expression. As it happened, William Blake was one of the first and most important multimedia artists that ever lived.