Written By Bill Michael
Marketing Analyst
Xerox Corporation

You know them: hearing, sight, touch, smell, taste. At drupa, each of your senses will be put to great use, as you will:

• Hear: The excitement of the 1000s of attendees in the print industry having conversations on a variety of topics.
• See: Technology and software that represents the future of our industry
• Touch: Printed samples with specialty media, innovative finishing, and special toner
• Smell: toner, ink and paper in the air as you walk by every vendors stand.
• Taste: German cuisine (maybe for the first time) and perhaps a few brands of German beer with some friends and colleagues.

At the Xerox stand (Hall 8b), your senses can best be used by seeing and touching the applications that we’ll be showcasing live in our stand, including many Best-of-the-Best winners. These winners include: IOS (Digital and Offset), Mediaware (Digital Packaging), MBA Group Limited (TransPromo), Telemail, S.L. (TransPromo), Easy Print (Photo Publishing), Printshop (Photo Publishing). Three additional winners include:

	DG3 Europe Limited (Best Overall Solution, case study) The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, the largest youth charity in the UK, wanted to enable their award winners to create and order personalized Achievement Packs online. They approached DG3 Europe Limited, who mapped out an end-to-end solution using FreeFlow Process Manager™ and the iGen4 with a Xerox FreeFlow™ Print Server – resulting in a 637% increase in usage of the achievement pack.
	De Budelse (Digital Packaging, case study) Recognizing the growing area of digital packaging, De Budelse built FotoChoco.nl to enable orders of personalized boxes of chocolate. Using the iGen4 and FreeFlow Print Server, they were able to sell over 11,000 boxes of chocolate. (your sense of taste!)
	CopyCat (Direct Marketing, case study) Using the Xerox Color 1000 Press, CopyCat used clear dry ink and personalized cross media to drive new business. The campaign generated a 10% response rate and helped bring in 20 new orders from new customers.

Please stop by Xerox Stand in Hall 8B to see and touch these great applications. We’ll find other ways to exercise your other senses!

Written by Bill Michael
Marketing Analyst
Xerox Corporation

How do you generate new ideas? Are you inspired by reading? By listening to others? By seeing other work? Inspiration of new ideas may come from a variety of sources.

In my role, I have the privilege of seeing dozens of print applications through programs such as Best-of-the-Best as well as coordinating applications to run at tradeshows such as drupa 2012. I see these applications not only as great examples of the power of digital printing, but as ideas that can help others in the print industry expand their offerings to their customers.

I wanted to share an assortment of applications that were recently selected as Gold award winning submissions in the 2011 IAPHC Award Program. Below you’ll find 3 print applications that I hope will inspire thoughts and ideas to implement in your own shop.

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Experiential Gatefold

This direct marketing piece created an experience for its recipients. The oversized carrier was printed on a 26” sheet and included a large gatefold. Inside were high-quality samples that were printed on a variety of substrates, all of which had a matte look and feel.

Key Concepts: Oversized Sheet, Matte Look, Experiential, Substrate Latitude

Technology:  Xerox iGen4 EXP Press with Matte Dry Ink

Thought Starters: Are you taking advantage of unique substrates?

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Dimensional Mailer (You Can Almost Eat)

Produced by Mailshop of New Zealand, this direct mail piece takes dimensional to another level by immediately becoming a conversation starter. Creative usage of Clear Dry Ink and personalization throughout help create relevance and captivates interest. The piece looks “delicious”….pun intended.

Key Concepts: Dimensional, Clear Dry Ink, Personalization

Technology: Xerox Color 800/1000 Press, Xerox FreeFlow Print Server, XMPie

Thought Starters: Have you thought of creating dimensional mailers to captivate a select audience? Can you enhance your work with Clear Dry Ink?

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University Parking Permit

This application is an example of using digital print in areas you might not expect. By combining Specialty Imaging, including micro-fonts and UV, along with personalized QR codes using Lytrod Software, this parking ticket raises the bar on digital printing – all while empowering parking enforcement!  This is a fantastic example of a unique application that creates high-value by utilizing personalization, specialty imaging, and outstanding quality.

Key Concepts: Personalization, QR Codes, Specialty Imaging

Technology: Xerox 550/560, Lytrod Software

Thought Starters: Can you think of ways to enhance seemingly everyday print applications? In what ways can your applications benefit from?

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Here’s a video that shares more detail about some of the other winning Xerox applications in the IAPHC Program.

Written by:
Joel Basa
eMarketing Manager
Xerox Corporation

Once in a blue moon, a print application will cross my desk that catches my eye. The reasons differ: stunning design, elaborate finishing, personalization, or maybe its vivid color. However, a particular photo book titled, “Anthony’s Prayers,” caught my eye because of the simplicity of its design and more importantly because of story and the content within. I’ve always believed, “content is king.” This was proof.

The Author, Anthony Torrone, has an intriguing story. Anthony is developmentally disabled, the result of a flu-like sickness when he was a young boy.  One day, he decided to write about all those things for which he was thankful.  His writing is simple but so profound and the photo book pairs his writing with photos that have been taken of Anthony through his interesting life.

I could put my “print industry” hat on and comment on the quality of the finishing and how Color House Graphics did an outstanding job of creating a high quality application using the iGen4 but for me Anthony’s story and the writing he has developed is the bigger story. Color House Graphics and others were enablers for Anthony and his amazing story.

Content is king. Creating bodies of work that capture amazing stories is what makes the print industry so appealing. We are very privileged to not be just print operators, marketers and graphic designers but story tellers and dream makers that enable others to tell an even better story.

Have any other examples of great print applications that tell a story? I’m sure you have many…please share your stories.

Written by:
Fred Ramsey
Worldwide Marketing Product Manager
Xerox Corporation

This week the Xerox 700i/770 was certified by the IDEAlliance certified to GRACoL – General Requirements for Applications in Commercial Offset Lithography.

I have always found some irony in the fact that one of our premier press certifications is pronounced the same as a black bird, the “grackle.”  (This is the same grackle that is eating in my wife’s garden). The GRACoL standard and my grackle friends share some traits—Yes, both are predictable, repetitive and both are durable—I suppose we need birds.  Certainly this is where the similarity ends!

The GRACoL certification provides an assurance in the areas of Accuracy, Uniformity, Repeatability, Durability, and Registration.  This certification is great news for people that know color management—And, even if you are not a color “guru”, the value is predictability in your production—You can be assured of hitting a repeatable sellable prints and this is good for anyone’s bottom-line.

In other words, this helps answer the question, “How do I get sellable, quality prints in a repeatable manner?” There are a set of steps.

While I can do without grackles in my daily life. Does GRACoL or another such standard add to your list of customers?

Written by Joel Basa, e-Marketing Manager at Xerox Corporation

Automation, it’s a part of our daily lives and routines. Think about it. A few examples from my own life this past July 4 weekend. I didn’t have to worry about my high speed internet connection bill being paid while out of town because of Automatic Bill Payment. The plants I didn’t have a chance to put in the ground before my wife and I went out of town didn’t die because of an Automatic Sprinkler. Even the simple task of turning on my headlights during our drive back to Rochester was “eliminated” due to Automatic Headlights. In fact, the actual action of me publishing this blog post on 11:00 AM ET was automated.

So, why automate? For many, automation equals efficiency and often efficiency equals increased productivity. The examples I cited before allowed me to be more efficient and productive and gave me more time to enjoy my vacation.

Now think about your own business? Last month, I discussed the topic of productivity for a digital press. In that blog post, we discussed the concept of operational prints per hour and how producing sellable prints is often the true objective of many businesses with digital presses. Automation is an important factor to increase operational prints per hour. Have you looked into solutions with intelligent prebuilt workflows to offload routine, repetitive tasks in the areas of prepress, print and finishing? How about if you could automate common print applications such as business cards? How about automation of variable information for personalization of these common applications?

Today, the Xerox® DocuColor 8080 was launched. This digital press embraces the importance of automation with the introduction of Productivity Apps. These innovative new Productivity Apps combine workflow solutions, templates, and professional services to help automate common jobs, maximize the productivity of your Xerox digital press, and drive increased revenues and profits.

Automation, are you embracing it in your print operations?

Written by Joel Basa, e-Marketing Manager at Xerox Corporation

Impressions per hour. Pages per minute. Sheets per hour. The industry has various ways of describing printing speed. However, let me ask you, “How productive is your press (digital or non-digital)?” If you’ve responded with a phrase similar to “120 Pages Per Minute” or “7000 Impressions Per Hour” then I’ll repeat my question, “How productive is your press?” Is the concept of “productivity” equivalent to “print speed?” I would argue not.

Step back and think about the printing process. Simply put, the objective of anyone operating a press is to produce output that will meet your customers need…something you would sell to them, a sellable print. It’s a manufacturing process. However, as we all know, the process of producing prints rarely goes without challenges. A press may produce inconsistent color, streaking, skewing and many more challenges that would result in disruption to the print process.

If a machine is capable of “X impressions per hour” the more important question to ask is, “how many sellable prints are produced per hour?” Some may call this “Operational Prints Per Hour.”

What are the things that negatively affect Operational Prints Per Hour? Just like in traditional manufacturing: defects and downtime. Let’s take a look at a couple challenges you may be facing as you produce work for your customers.

Color: Customers demand accurate color and consistent color.  Have you had to interrupt jobs in order to make adjustments to color? These adjustments affect the true productivity of your shop. Does your press provide color management automation to some of these adjustments?

Streaking: Non-sellable prints are often produced when a press starts producing output that contains streaks? With a break-fix mode of many presses, the operator would have to make adjustments in order to bring the machine back to sellable print quality. Ideally, automation would be in place to detect and eliminate this problem.

I strongly feel its important for the industry to start thinking about productivity, moving away from speeds and feeds and more to what truly helps you produce more jobs and grow your business. Think about the productivity of your press. How are you measuring this?

Written by David Kirk, Manager, Xerox FreeFlow VI Suite Development

I know it is hard to believe, how can variable data and the application of “Clear Dry Ink” possibly be easy?  What if I told you it is as simple as a mouse click.

Using Xerox® FreeFlow® VIPP® Pro Publisher software (one of the tools in the FreeFlow VI Suite), you can skip the typical pre-press steps and instead apply Clear Dry Ink directly to your design with a simple mouse click.  VIPP Pro Publisher takes care of the rest.

Now we all know that clear dry ink makes for super-cool applications and enhances creativity. You can use it to highlight images and text for visual impact or display content in more vivid ways. And your output will always be impressive when printed on a Xerox® Color 800/1000 Press with clear dry ink.

But it can be cumbersome for designers to use and often adds time and additional steps to the process. Unless they are using VIPP Pro Publisher…

VIPP Pro Publisher is a plug-in to Adobe® InDesign®. It allows you to create variable applications such as tickets, post-cards, fliers, etc using variable text and rich graphical content with the power of conditional processing, all from its easy to use GUI.  In addition, the FreeFlow VI Interpreter with advanced Dynamic Document Composition gets you printing within minutes because there is no pre-composition step. That means no data chunking, no huge files tying up your network – all the composition happens at the printer at run time. Now combine all of this with a simple and fast way to add clear dry ink to variable text and graphics and you have a winning combination where the results … well… sparkle!

No more worrying about last minute design decisions or changes – no need to go back to pre-press.  Just select the object you want to apply the Clear Dry Ink to and then right-click and it’s done.

I told you it was simple – thanks to the power of VIPP Pro Publisher. Now…Are We Clear?

For more information, view this video or find FreeFlow VIPP Pro Publisher on www.xerox.com.

Questions or thoughts? Please comment below.