5 Colorful Questions for Julie Shaffer
by Sandy Hubbard, Print Futurist
Traditionally, Printing Industries of America’s Color Management Conference has been a place where prepress operators, retouchers, and print production professionals could rub shoulders with color scientists and those who create the standards for color around the world.
In a word, it was a Geekfest.
This year, the 2013 conference amps up education and networking for brand managers, agency executives, designers, and marketing professionals. In fact, the event is ideal for anyone who wants to align and monitor their brand across media or be more strategic about using color in their communications.
The Color Management Conference takes place December 7-10, 2013 in Phoenix, Arizona. It is put on by Julie Shaffer (@JulieShafferPIA) and her team at Printing Industries of America. I asked Julie why the conference is seeking a broader audience.
SH: The name Color Management Conference sounds like color is some wild thing that needs to be tamed. Does color need to be managed?
JS: Color IS a wild thing, and it most certainly does have to be managed, especially when it comes to color reproduction.
Without color management, it’s extremely difficult for brands to keep their iconic colors consistent across different printing processes or even from one press to another. And today the importance of keeping color consistent goes way beyond managing color for print; it’s important across electronic media, too!
That’s why we have two sessions on managing color for tablets and other electronic devices at the conference this year.
SH: The Color Management Conference historically attracts the top experts in the world of color. These brilliant people eat, sleep and breathe color management. Why should a “normal person” attend the conference?
JS: The beauty of this conference is that the color “geek” — the standards experts, the G7® professionals—really serve as mentors to the “newbie” attendees.
I’ve never seen another event where people share information to the degree they do at this one. That’s one of the reasons we have networking events every night, because folks really do talk color all evening!
In the words of Dave Peterson, a color management engineer at Lifetouch Services, Inc., “All of the Rock Stars of Color Management will be at this conference. In no other place will you find this caliber of knowledge and expertise in the world of Color. Mingle and make friendships and contacts that will benefit you for years to come.”
SH: There are events all over the world geared to color professionals. Why should people attend this one?
JS: Actually, there is no other color conference like this one — certainly not in the U.S.
This is not a certification course, nor is it a general “print” focused conference. It’s kind of the Sturgess of the color communication world. While there’s a core group of color management devotees that support and attend every year, the color conference typically hosts 30-40% new attendees, people who come to learn what it takes to build a dependable, accurate color managed environment in their own companies.
After a couple of years, many of these people help transform their companies and become color experts themselves — and we’ll put them on the podium to tell their story to the next wave of new attendees. In this way, a real sense of community has been established over the years. This building of relationships is one of the key reasons to attend.
And then there are the incredible keynotes, I mean we have Russell Brown, Adobe’s Sr. Creative Director and Photoshop guru! People throw that term around too loosely – in this case, Russell really IS a guru! Check out his podcast “The Russell Brown Show” to see what I mean!
SH: We heard a rumor about prizes…?
JS: Yes. For the past three years we’ve sold the new iMac computers that are used in the hands-on lab track at the conference for hundreds less than you can buy them for. We could rent computers, but then we aren’t assured of having new machines and an overall great experience for attendees. So instead of renting, we buy the computers and give attendees the opportunity to buy a computer at a rate they’d never get anywhere else. We pay the same amount that we would in renting the computers, but we give 20 plus people a chance to get a new machine at a great price. So out of this came the idea to let some lucky person get one of the computers free though a raffle. After we let the vendor partners know about this, some of them wanted to spread the love too, and offered more prizes, including a BenQ monitor with hood (it’s a special monitor for critical color use) essential color management software, like ColorThink Pro from Chromix, gift cards and other color-centric prizes. So the odds of winning something get better every day as more prizes get put into the treasure chest!
SH: Anything else you’d like to add?
JS: The most color critical and color conscious people in the world are the managers of consumer brands. Brands and color really go hand-in-hand. While we have many times over the years had speakers representing major brands on the podium to share how critical accurate color in in their world, we have never had a full track devoted to brand managers and their requirements — until this year.
It’s a killer track with sessions that will appeal to brand folks and designers alike. It’s not too late to register for this event. Jet down to Phoenix in December and position yourself for a more colorful 2014!
Sandy Hubbard is Print Futurist for Print Media Centr. Some of her best friends are color geeks and control freaks.
