Graph Expo Opens! by Richard Romano

By Richard Romano on October 3rd, 2010

“The industry sure has changed in your lifetime,” Jim Olsen said to me as we walked through the aisles at Graph Expo this afternoon. “And it sure has changed in my lifetime.” Jim got his start in the industry at Williams Press, back when magazines were printed on letterpress equipment. So he’s seen a few changes over the years. (I should also hasten to add that he has the latest iPhone and bought an iPad before I did.)

We had been walking back from a demonstration of the Fujifilm Digital Inkjet J Press 720. The demonstration was pure trade show theater, Petit Guignol perhaps. The press itself is concealed behind a white curtain. As the orchestral music swells, the curtain slides back and the press is unveiled, and I was kind of reminded of that scene in King Kong where Kong is unveiled to a New York audience, who are aghast, agape, and agog at the sight before them. (Happily, the analogy ends there.) The machine was then demoed—a high-speed (up to 2,700 four-up sheets per hour) inkjet printer that prints on regular coated offset stock. To my eye, the printed samples looked pretty good, and unless the demo was some sort of Mission: Impossible-like ruse (were Barney and Rollin hidden inside handing out preprinted sheets?), they were printed live as we watched. “It’s magic,” Jim had said. Well, a certain Arthur C. Clarke quote notwithstanding, not really. Just technology.

Continues at: Graph Expo Opens! – Printing Industry News and Opinion from Print CEO.