I spoke with CEOs from both companies following release of the news.  Carl Gerhardt of Allegra said, “We have been talking about this for two or three years or more with some of the franchise companies.  Most of them were favorably inclined to it, although there were many issues to be overcome, not the least of which is scheduling. Some had already booked facilities through 2012. And others felt it would be too difficult to coordinate. We also began talking to some of the key vendors. They were really enthused about the idea and gave us their full support. Anytime they can eliminate going to a show, it saves them a boatload of money. Although the vendors have been great supporting all of our individual meetings, we also felt that it may get more difficult to gain that support in the future.”

According to Cushing, “This makes supporting our show and conference so much more economical for the vendors, and we hope it encourages them to bring even more resources because of the ability to leverage one investment of time and expense to speak with more customers in a much calmer and more targeted environment than a large show can deliver.”

One question that comes to mind is whether the two networks ultimately plan to merge.  They both say there are no such plans on the table.  Cushing said, “The results of combined cooperative efforts in the past stand on their own as motivation to find more ways to enable our systems to benefit from future combined efforts such as the joint Technology Expo.” Gerhardt added that each franchise will be holding its separate annual conference in conjunction with the Expo, and each franchise will have a separate day on the show floor.  “This is better for us and for the vendors,” he explained. “They have only one set-up expense, and they have more quality time with members of each franchise.  At big shows like Graph Expo, visitors are much less targeted, and it is so busy that they often must hold quality meetings before or after show hours.  This way, they have a more targeted audience, the show is very focused on our needs, the vendors sell stuff and our franchisees get targeted information that is of value to them. It is a win/win all the way around.”

Cushing commented, “When I became CEO of AlphaGraphics, Carl was one of the first to welcome me to the leadership group of the franchise part of the industry.  We have also had a great working relationship with the Lowes at Franchise Services and have been able to put friendly competition to work for the benefit of the franchisees in all of our organizations.”  Cushing also points out that these relationships have been put to work to address other issues for the benefit of all of the networks, such as the Adobe flap over the Print to Kinko’s button proposed for Acrobat, the change in strategy for HP’s MarketSplash and more recently 4Over’s introduction of the Red Tag initiative. The franchise coalition has come together quickly to address these perceived threats.

Cushing also points out other benefits, such as the ability to leverage their combined negotiating muscle to obtain favorable pricing on rooms and other aspects of the combined event, allowing both organizations to put on great conferences and a trade show with a more economical package for franchisees. He adds, “We don’t compromise anything, and we get the benefit of the working partnership with Allegra on this.”

Franchise owners from both networks were also receptive to the move, indicating that anything that gives them a bigger and better show and more vendor support is a  benefit. When asked whether he thought other franchise operations would join in over time, Gerhardt said, “We don’t’ know if other franchises will join us in future years with this same model.  We are certainly open to that.”

While on the surface these networks appear to be competitors, and are competitors especially when their individual centers are located close to each other, Gerhardt asserts that they are “friendly” competitors in the broader sense of the market.  “The way we look at the world, we have bigger fish to fry,” he says. “Bigger competition comes from vendors putting highly functional printing devices into businesses, companies like VistaPrint and the office superstores, as well as the structural changes the industry is undergoing. If we can get most of the independents to convert to franchise, which could be seen as another area of competition, we will all get our share.  We have more things in common than we do in terms of competitive threats from each other, and that is what enabled us to put this together.  We have to look beyond corporate politics and get our staffs to communicate with each other on this level. That has been a good process so far.”

Cushing added, “As strong as each of our brands is, we are still a minority share in the marketplace compared to the industry at large.  Collaborations like this help bolster that share for all of us.”

While Gharakhanian is quick to point out that the online print business has been around for 10 to 15 years, he believes what Red Tag Print Sale represents is a revolutionary idea that can bring business back into 4Over’s network of print resellers.

Here’s how it works:

• The service is available only to certain 4Over customers who qualify based on a customer loyalty evaluation that stratifies the customer base into five groups based on the length of the relationship with 4Over, frequency, volume and other factors:  Associate, Premier, Premier Executive, Admiral and President.  Only the top three classifications qualify.
• A qualifying printer can join the network at no cost for the first three months, with a subsequent $300 monthly membership fee.  Gharakhanian indicates these funds will be allocated to continuing development of the site and marketing, at least matched by 4Over, with 4Over most likely adding more than the accumulated membership fees to the pot.
• When an order is received, 4Over determines the closest member based on the zip code of the order.
• 4Over produces and ships the order at wholesale, collects payment and pays participating print service providers retail profits monthly. 4Over also provides all contact information to the print service provide who can then follow up personally with the end customer.
• Members are given a special, customizable code they can use to promote the program in the course of their advertising efforts, whether it is local TV, local sports team programs, or any other advertising/marketing initiative they care to use.  This code offers a 10% discount to the end buyer, and guarantees that job profits go to that specific printer, regardless of where the order originates.

Gharakhanian asserts that in no way is this intended to take customers away from existing 4Over clients, but says that it actually benefits print service providers, who have been losing business to online services, giving them an opportunity to recoup profits and establish new relationships or revive customers who have defected. (A Google search on business cards turned up 94 million hits, with VistaPrint at the top …).

Resellers are brokers, print service providers, and graphic designers who sell directly to end users.

Objections to this model from within the printing industry, particularly franchise organizations who do a significant amount of business with 4Over, revolve around the perception that Red Tag Print Sale is nothing more than VistaPrint and is a breach of confidence between 4Over and its customers, in fact, perhaps causing a loss of customers rather than an increase in business.  One person I spoke with asked, “what happens if there is a Sir Speedy, an Allegra and an AlphaGraphics in the same zip code?  How do they choose who gets the business?”  Another said, “This is just a way for 4Over to have its cake and eat it, too.”

I understand there are discussions ongoing among these parties and with 4Over. Many of the objectors also successfully worked to reverse Adobe’s decision to remove the “Print to Kinko’s” button from Acrobat, and to get HP to change direction on MarketSplash.

One thing is clear:  4Over needs to spiff up its marketing message to more accurately portray the service.  This may not prevent a coalition from taking market action, as happened in the Adobe and HP situations, but at least they would have all of the right information on which to base their decisions.

This will be an interesting process to watch, and we will be following it closely.

Following publication of this post, 4Over requested two corrections, which should be noted by our readers:

“I would like to point out two things. First 4over does not operate the site, Red Tag is separate. Secondly, Red Tag determines which 4over reseller gets the customer based on zip code, not 4over.”

.
.

At PMA 2010, the trade event for “everything photo,” Mohawk Fine Papers announced the acquisition of LabPrints, a developer of workflow software and services for professional photographers and photo labs. “Wait,” you say, “a paper company bought a software company?” In search of clarification, I spoke to Bart Robinson, Mohawk’s VP Marketing and Customer Service, and Bill Gamble, LabPrints’ CEO.

What might look like a diversion from a core strategy is actually well-planned diversification to develop a creative ecosystem that extends through the supply chain from the user and creator of content to the provider of the substrate on which the image is printed.

In the late 1990s, recognizing that digital printing would be evolving and taking hold, Mohawk launched a line of digital print papers. Working closely with production partners like HP influenced Mohawk to become much more technology driven. Today digital papers are an important part of Mohawk’s paper sales, for both converted products sold through distributors and under the Mohawk name. As photobooks became more popular, a Preferred Partner relationship with HP helped drive sales until Mohawk now claims a significant share of photo book pages produced.

Looking at the changing face of the print world – with volumes changing and printers evolving or closing – Mohawk looked at their experience as a supplier of media to the photo segment as adjacent to their core market.

In 2009, Mohawk made several moves along the supply chain including a strategic investment in liveBooks and the launch of Felt & Wire Shop.

liveBooks is a provider of website development and hosting services for creative professionals, including photographers, architects, and graphic designers, that need graphics-intensive websites and search optimization services.

A “curated collection,” Felt & Wire Shop offers graphic designers a site to promote and sell their products, including framed posters, greeting and post cards, gift wrap, and other paper-based printed items.

Located just a little over a mile apart since 2002 – a left turn and a right turn – Mohawk and LabPrints operated in their own universes until recently, when it became clear that those universes were overlapping.

Bill Gamble launched his company to provide tools to photographers and add value to the workflow as more photographers moved from film to digital. Gamble partnered with photo labs that were fulfilling orders for professional photographers and leveraged the lab to reach the photographer.

The business grew and adapted to the change in the photographer’s market too. Photographers began selling photo greeting cards, photobooks and other products printed on digital presses rather than traditional photo finishing equipment. It was at that point that LabPrint recognized the overlap with Mohawk.

Similar to the current offering of VDP/Web to Print/Workflow Integration tools available to printers who produce custom printed documents through web portals and store fronts, LabPrints facilitates the content creation by giving the photographer the means to organize, edit, order, design, post and sell images online with a single desktop application. In other words, a web-to-print solution for a photographer and lab or digital printer, much like those sold for document production.

• The proPhotographer suite comes with a free core product, LP Digital Studio, and nine separately priced modules that allow the photographer to “custom fit” the solution. The modules also integrate with Adobe applications and other desktop workflow tools.
• The proLab solution is a workflow solution for photo labs and digital printers that can be integrated with photo production applications and accounting programs.
• The third element is the Online Services option that provides a storefront site with album presentation and online ordering.

The technology also allows for an ecommerce website to give the photographer an online retail presence. For example, Pinhole Press offers a web stationery boutique featuring clean, contemporary design templates for custom photo greeting cards. Pinhole Press notes, “You can choose from our collection of unique card designs, easily upload photos, and create a personal message.” LabPrints is the “man behind the curtain” letting this group of designers reach a new audience and sell their products online.

Are there more of these deals in the works? According to Robinson, “We at Mohawk are committed to being more than just a paper company. We’re always looking at new opportunities as they come forward. They don’t have to be in our core market, just related. And we are going to bring Bill’s successful toolset for photo finishers to the digital print community, both printers and photo labs.”

“We are not turning our back on printers; we continue to be committed to the print segment and it is really important that people don’t think Adobe doesn’t care about the industry. We do.” (Lynly Schambers-Lenox, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Print Service Provider Program at Adobe)

Do you think that your small printing business could be hurt, directly or indirectly, by Adobe Systems Inc.’s decision to retire the Adobe Partner Connection Print Service Provider Program?

In case you’re not familiar with this development and its implications for users of Adobe graphic software, WhatTheyThink has been all over the story since the news broke earlier this month. Senior editor Cary Sherburne made it the subject of a heavily commented thread at PrintCEO and followed this up with a comprehensive analysis of Adobe’s move in WhatTheyThink’s news section last week. Frank Romano has weighed in with a no-holds-barred opinion piece of his own, and a lively discussion of the situation is in progress over at PrintPlanet.

There’s much to talk about. For many years, paid subscribers to the Partner Program could count on continuous software updates and other forms of assistance that let them optimize their use of Creative Suite and related Adobe products. By providing responsive technical support, the program also reinforced Adobe’s ties to the industry that it revolutionized—a favor that the industry returned by steadfastly purchasing Adobe products and serving as the bedrock of the $19 billion operation that Adobe Systems is today.

The connection will be reset on February 4, 2010 as Adobe, citing declining participation in the Partner Program, attempts to replace it with another, as-yet-undefined support scheme for Adobe users. The company says that this plan, which seems to involve obtaining support through the regional affiliates of Printing Industries of America, will make former subscribers “happy” even though direct liaison with the source will be lost. WhatTheyThink has reported that Quark Inc., which lost its long-held primacy in desktop publishing after Adobe launched Creative Suite in 2003, hopes to lure unhappy Adobe customers with offers of free copies of QuarkXPress 8 and free enrollment in its own output provider programs.

It remains to be seen how printers, who could no more function without Adobe technology than they could without paper or ink, will be affected by the company’s apparent decision to distance itself from their day-to-day operations. The fear, as always, is that the impact will be in inverse proportion to company size. “The people hurt the most are the small quick printers who don’t have the resources or see the need to be a member of Printing Industries of America,” observes Scott Cappel, president of Sorrento Mesa Printing in San Diego, CA, in a quote from Cary’s analysis.

Personally, it makes us sad to see any change that even appears to reduce Adobe’s historic identification with graphic communications. Adobe founders John Warnock and Charles Geschke are printing’s Edison and Marconi. With PostScript, they turned the graphic arts into something that made sense to do with computers. Think of how the PostScript Type 1 font format transformed typography. Try to imagine multimedia publishing or electronic document management as they exist today without the emergence of PDF—it can’t be done.

If you have something to say about Adobe’s new stance on its relationship with printing, you can be sure that many ears are listening. Please post your comments here, at PrintCEO, or at PrintPlanet—or at all three.

CLARIFICATION: The $19 billion figure cited above refers to an estimate of Adobe’s market capitalization, not its actual revenue. Adobe has reported that it achieved revenue of $2.946 billion in fiscal year 2009.

We are no longer accepting applications for the Print Service Provider program.

There is no formal press release, but Adobe asserts in the message from its PR agency, Edelman, that the print segment continues to be important and that the company will retain its ongoing relationship with regional print industry associations. Print service providers are referred to their regional partner program helpdesk if they have any questions about program policies.

The program had two levels:  Authorized membership ($595) and Premium membership ($995).  Both programs offered various technical, product and promotional benefits. Following the departure of printing industry evangelist, Robin Tobin, from Adobe, it is not clear who was tasked with promoting the program or how it was being promoted, if at all.

WhatTheyThink will be following up on this story with Adobe, but it would be interesting to hear thoughts from our readers who may have joined the program as to its value and how they feel about its discontinuance. If there are no responses, I suppose that would speak for itself.

Andy spoke of both the Seybold Seminars events and Comdex, the once-giant computer show, both of which are no longer with us. But instead of those events reinforcing his point, they actually prove just the opposite. I ran the Seybold events from 1999 to 2002, and was a top executive for the company that produced Comdex. In both examples there is a story relevant to the current situation at GraphExpo.

When I took over Seybold, all of my friends in the industry came to me and lamented that Seybold was no longer what it use to be and deplored me to somehow wave a magic wand and make the industry relevant and interesting again. This in an era when the once-giant brands like Linotype-Hell, Scitex, Agfa/Compugraphic and many others were ceding their leadership roles to upstarts such as Adobe, Quark, Macromedia and Apple. At the same time, the industry generally threw a fit when we tried to cover the growing role of the Internet in communications and balked at the thought that “new media” played an important role in what they did and the products they delivered. So rather than embrace some change, many people simple held on to technology and business practices that were no longer productive.

The case of Comdex is quite different, but also holds a lesson. Comdex refused to change when computer technology became commodity products. The market for Comdex didn’t go away, it simply shifted to other venues. Today the Consumer Electronics Show is one of the largest in the world and there you will find many of the previous Comdex exhibitors, still spending huge amounts of money to showcase their products. But instead of computers being sold at specialty shops and computer retailers, they are sold at Best Buy and Amazon.

So in one case you have a market that refused to change and in the other a show that refused to adapt to the changing market. I know the folks who run the Graphic Arts Show Company, and while they can’t control what happens in the marketplace, I can guarantee that they are paying attention and trying very hard to adapt the events to suit current market conditions and developments.

The other mistake that Andy makes is to assume that events like Graph Expo are all about selling equipment. Yes, of course big trade shows have to make sense from a marketing perspective and have to provide exhibitors and attendees a return on their investment. But just as the auto manufacturers don’t look at auto shows as a place to directly sell cars, the graphic arts industry has to see the value in creating a showplace for the world to see the innovation and important developments that are taking place within the field.

I am currently working in the venture capital business and I see all kinds of interesting developments, such as thin-film solar panels, where printing and coating technology will play huge rolls in the cost-effectiveness of manufacturing. These industries are not going to wait four years to see new technology, and neither are many of the new businesses being established around managed print services and in-house digital printing.

And a big role that events such as Graph Expo play is in the continuing education and social networking of the industries they serve. Getting together for important conversations every few years, especially for an industry facing serious issues, is hardly going to generate the sort of answers and innovation that might turn a slump into new opportunities.

There are clearly answers that will deliver a pay-off for exhibitors and attendees while keeping Graph Expo current and timely. But decreasing the frequency of the event is not one of them. Of the many shows I’m familiar with, Graph Expo is actually in one of the best positions to remain relevant because it is owned by the industry itself. Yes, some thing will have to change, and the industry will have to collectively decide that it is worth the effort and thoughtful consideration to make those things happen. They may include some further consolidation with other events and groups, or looking to related industries for partnership opportunities.

But Andy, please don’t suggest that Graph Expo go down the fatal path of minimizing its relevance and importance. Now is the time for the industry to fight. You can’t just wish times were better or that we could go back in time and recapture the glory of days long past. You have to look forward with determination and enthusiasm, and the industry players that comprise the Graph Expo community have to make critical decisions together. That process simply has to include an annual event that showcases what is still great about the United States graphic arts industry and the promise it holds for the future.

Announced this week, it’s basically a collection of do-it-yourself templates for everyday printed products that businesses use: cards, letterhead and envelopes, folders, brochures, note pads, postcards, note cards, address labels, flyers, and promotional magnets. The templates can be accessed at kiosks in FedEx Office Print & Ship Centers—there are 1,900 of them—or online.

Technically speaking, the concept is nothing new, and FedEx already has a competitor poised to do the pretty much same thing on an even grander scale. That would be UPS, which is now billing itself as “the nation’s largest online printing network” for small businesses by virtue of the online printing services it now offers through its 4,400 UPS Stores.

What could give the FedEx initiative a competitive boost is its attractive shipping policy. There’s no shipping charge for jobs with seven-day turnarounds—a break that could prove irresistible to small companies buying printed matter that isn’t time-sensitive. (UPS uses a distribute-and-print model whereby customers pick up their finished jobs at the UPS location of their choice. FedEx also offers a pickup option for orders placed in-store.)

Quick printers and other vendors of print-for-pay services have been buffeted for years by competition from office-superstore copy centers and by various online schemes that appeared to be doing end-runs around traditional providers. (Remember the furor over the “Send to FedEx Kinko’s” button once embedded in Adobe Acrobat Reader? Or the ire that HP stirred with its “MarketSplash” program, which it launched and then abruptly pulled back from earlier this year?) The question now is how much the print-for-pay segment actually has left to surrender to FedEx and UPS as they joust over low-margin, commoditized work that’s already priced too low to keep an ordinary print shop going.

In other words, if either or both of the giants are successful, will the industry even notice the pain in the midst of everything else that’s hurting it right now? And, what’s the potential exposure for dedicated online print providers like VistaPrint and PrintingForLess.com?

The Motley Fool, by the way, thinks that FedEx and UPS are barking up a barren tree with these ventures. But, we’d like to know what you think about these latest incursions into the print space by companies that certainly have size on their side—but perhaps not much else.

Faced with declining membership and a challenging economy, the Graphic Arts Society of Printers (GASP) knew that it needed to take drastic steps to survive. To that end, key executives had an intensive year-long closed-door meeting and hashed out what the industry association believes is a surefire way to combat a challenging market.

“Ultimately,” said GASP president Bertram Crouch, “we determined that the solution to all of our and the industry’s problems was a new logo. Not just any new logo, of course, but one imbued with magical powers.”

To carry out the challenging task not only of designing the new logo but also of enchanting it—that is, adding the magical powers—GASP turned to Salem, MA’s DesignMagic Associates, a full-service design firm specializing in branding, corporate identity, logo design, and sorcery. DesignMagic’s staff includes three full-time graphic designers who specialize in print, five who specialize in Web and interactive media, and one additional full-time employee known only as “Esmeralda,” whose official title is Senior Design Associate/High Priestess.

According to DesignMagic principal Holly Thakathi, “Esmeralda is able to take an electronic file and coalesce the cosmic essence that powers the universe, channel it, and focus it into that file, so that the very pixels that comprise that file, and thus the printer dots that are ultimately generated from it, contain that distilled cosmic essence. That essence then is conveyed back to the individual or company that will be the beneficiary of those powers. Oh, and Esmeralda is also a whiz at Adobe Illustrator.”

The process goes something like this: Once the file to be enchanted—such as a logo—is designed, Esmeralda needs to scan a personal item belonging to the person upon whom the magical powers will be conferred. “We can also accept e-mailed JPEGs, but the higher the resolution, the better,” said Thakathi. Then, through a complex process involving mystic incantations, ritual sacrifice, and Photoshop retouching, the file is imbued with the power to bestow good luck and success on the client. Or, in some cases, bad luck and tragedy.

The GASP logo presented DesignMagic with an unusual challenge. “In order to bestow success on the association, ultimately the logo has to confer luck and success on an entire interrelated network of industries, from printing to marketing to advertising to…well, any industry that creates graphic communications,” said Thakathi. “If it were just a case of someone wanting to come into a lot of money, that’s easy. But the GASP project was far more involved.” She added with a smile, “But not impossible.”

Technical problems were the chief impediments to the success of the GASP project, however. During the enchantment stage, there was a karmic surge that crashed the company’s production server. “The server was running Windows XP, so to get it back up and running we had to sacrifice a goat in the pale moonlight,” said Thakathi. “That can really be a production bottleneck.”

Ultimately, GASP was quite happy with the work DesignMagic produced. “They were very good at acceding to many of our own design preferences,” said GASP’s Crouch. “For example, we are very particular about fonts. They were a bit skittish about our insistence on using Friz Quadrata, but once we got them round to our way of thinking, the rest of the process went very smoothly.”

As for how the enchanted logo is working out, “It’s too soon to tell,” Crouch says. “We have started using it in the press releases we send out as StarOffice files, but I don’t know that anyone has opened them yet. But it’s still early yet.”

GASP is not taking anything for granted, however, and is proactively working with DesignMagic to develop a far more ambitious strategy for renewing the printing industry as a whole. “I’m not a liberty to go into detail just yet,” said Crouch, “but all I can say is that it involves the disembodied skull of Johann Gutenberg.”

In that post I asked, “Will this make HP Graphic Arts customers question HP’s commitment to their business?” From the conversations I have had with print shop owners and executives the answer is a resounding ‘yes!’ You can get a feel for this in the responses to my initial post.

Carl Gerhardt, CEO Allegra Network has shared with Print CEO the issues the leadership of print franchises have with HP MarketSplash:

The leaders of three of the major franchise companies Carl Gerhardt, CEO Allegra Network, Kevin Cushing, CEO , Alphagraphics and Rich Lowe, President, Franchise Services have engaged HP in discussions regarding the HP MarketSplash program. A conference call was held last week with Jan Riecher, V.P. HP Americas Graphics Solutions Business, and Francis McMahon, HP Americas Marketing Director. These franchise companies presented a strong case that the MarketSplash program has not been received well by their franchisees and the print for pay market in general. Moreover, the program as it is currently positioned is a huge negative for HP with virtually all of the print for pay market. Reference was made to the controversy that resulted in 2007 from Adobe’s announcement to partner with FedEx/Kinkos with a link in Adobe Acrobat. HP is facing a similar controversy with their announcement of MarketSplash. Adobe later canceled the program after meetings with these franchises and other industry leaders.

The industry outcry has not been as loud with the HP announcement. However, at this point, HP MarketSplash is not as visible and well known as was the Adobe and FedEx/Kinkos program. The intent of this dialog with HP is to request they reconsider the positioning of MarketSplash before more damage is done to the HP name as they attempt to make further penetration into the print for pay market. Additional meetings are planned with HP executives at ON Demand and at HP headquarters over the next 30 days to have further dialog regarding the issue.

It has been suggested that HP make order fulfillment capability available to all of the HP Indigo owners who have Web-enabled Print workflows. Others have insisted HP abandon HP MarketSplash altogether.

But then, the cynical might point out, printing again defied macroeconomic trends when, in 1998, the industry went into a recession of its own in 1998—at the same time the economy in general was in the midst of the tech boom.

As Dr. Joe Webb and I point out in a new WhatTheyThink research report, The U.S. Graphic Design Business 2008–2013: Industry Demographics, Trends, and Forecasts, the graphic design markets have also done their share of bucking economic trends. In particular, we delved deep into the data and found that during the last major recession—1990–1991 (2001 was fairly mild by comparison)—graphic design employment, payroll, and establishments grew at rates exceeding GDP growth. And even a couple years later, when full-time employment started to shrink, the number of establishments expanded dramatically.

Why? The same reason the printing industry thrived in the late 1970s: technology. The explosive growth of desktop publishing that had started simmering in the mid to late 1980s had hit full boil by the turn of the decade. Aldus PageMaker kickstarted desktop publishing in 1985; QuarkXPress was released in 1987, and Photoshop 1.0 in 1990. (Version 2.0 appeared in 1991.) Adobe Illustrator was first released in 1986 and Illustrator 88 (as in 1988) was a pivotal release. This means that by the time the recession hit during 1990, the “classic” applications for desktop publishing were appearing and starting to become widely adopted.

It also means that even when graphic designers were laid off or could not find full-time employment, they can still easily and inexpensively set up shop as freelancers. That situation continued, and what got a lot of designers through the 2001 recession was again another technological development: the continued evolution of Web design and development and other e-marketing opportunities.

Ultimately, individual industries and markets have their own dynamics that can offset macroeconomic trends. If there are compelling market drivers in an industry, such as new tools and technologies appearing and stimulating investment and the creation of new businesses and freelancers, it can remain somewhat immune to drastic economic downturns.

So are we in a position today? Are there tools and technologies that can help graphic designers weather the current storm? The answer is yes; however, they almost entirely involve online and interactive media.

Which is one reason that in The U.S. Graphic Design Business 2008–2013: Industry Demographics, Trends, and Forecasts, we have a fairly optimistic outlook of the future of the graphic design business. The report provides extensive quantitative Economics and Research Center data on:

• number of establishments
• number of employees
• size of businesses (by number of employees)
• design business births and deaths
• annual receipts/revenues (in current dollars as well as inflation-adjusted dollars)
• size of businesses (by dollars billed)
• payroll per establishment (in current dollars as well as inflation-adjusted dollars)
• receipts per employee (in current dollars as well as inflation-adjusted dollars)
• payroll per employee (in current dollars as well as inflation-adjusted dollars)
• total capital expenditures per design business
• capital expenditures for new equipment
• capital expenditures for used equipment
• industries where graphic designers are located

The report provides current data, as well as ERC forecasts out to 2013. In addition to graphic design companies, we also provide the same data sets for graphic design freelancers. How many freelancers will there likely be by 2013? How much will they make, on average? How much will the spend on hardware and software?

The report also provides a comprehensive overview of the industry and cultural trends that will affect the demographics of the industry in the next four years—and beyond. We also discuss the present economic situation and what it will likely mean for graphic design companies, as well as the companies that sell products and services to those companies and individuals.

From the description:

Tech journalist Pamela Pfiffner explores the rich history behind the modern publishing revolution, as seen through the lens of one of its most important players. In the past 20 years, Adobe Systems has become synonymous with great design tools, and the company’s impact on how we work in publishing, graphic arts, and on the Web is unmatched. Join Pfiffner on a colorful journey from the roots of the desktop publishing revolution through the rise of the Web and interactive design. Along the way, you’ll witness the birth and evolution of PostScript, the explosion of the Photoshop market, the realization of the paperless office, and other events that have shaped the way we communicate.

Inside the Publishing Revolution is not one of those dull historical tomes you know and loathe from high school. Pfiffner packs its pages with lively, insightful interviews with world-class designers and illustrators, as well as personal insights and recollections from John Warnock, Chuck Geschke, Jonathan Seybold, and other publishing luminaries. Richly illustrated and beautifully designed, the book features galleries of historically significant work by leading artists and rare photographs from the Adobe archives. For added perspective, Pfiffner walks you through an illustrated timeline of the publishing revolution. As with history, the final chapter of the Adobe story remains to be written, so the book ends with an eye toward the future: an exclusive overview of the company’s vision of publishing in the next decade.

You will need the free Adobe Digital Editions application to read the book. If you don’t have Adobe Digital Editions, you will be promoted to install when downloading the book.

Hat tip to Professor Michael L. Kleper.

Update Some have asked how the video was made. Here’s what Frank had to say:

For the video, the paintings were digitally photographed. I was video taped in front of a green screen and then the recording was digitized.

Using Adobe After Effects, vector outlines were created so I could be behind or wherever.

We had to watch the sound (there is a cable up my pants leg), the size ratio of me to the painting image, and where I had to look or point.

And now you know…the rest of the story.

It turned up by accident the other day in a search for something else, enabling me to use the word “serendipitous” correctly in this sentence. Sliding the disc into the computer, I quickly forgot about the original object of my rummaging.

CDs were relative novelties as collateral material for conferences in 1996, when covering any industry event meant leaving room in one’s luggage for the five to 10 pounds of hard-copy press kits that invariably would make the trip home with the attendee. Consistent with the rise of non-print media that were rewriting the rules of publishing—and shaping the fate of the Seybold Seminars—at the time, this CD presented the entire conference program in a format that also had something of a shiny-new-kid air, interactive PDF.

Then, the conference CD was an innovative paper-saver (as were the 48 digital “totebags” of exhibitor information included in the disk). Now, it’s a valuable time capsule: a freeze-framed portrait of an industry being transformed in ways that only the hindsight of 12 years can illuminate.

The conference session summaries and the exhibitor descriptions are full of clues about how far the industry had yet to travel along a path whose direction it didn’t fully comprehend in 1996, a year when it was still possible to offer a session with a straight-faced debate about whether “the Internet phenomenon is about to collapse of its own weight.”

The CD also is a wistful reminder of how much the Seybold Seminars are missed by those who were fortunate enough to take part in them. For many years, they were must-attend venues where all of the most important announcements about desktop publishing, computerized print production, and, eventually, Web-based publishing routinely were made.

As Craig Cline, then program development director, notes in the CD, Seybold San Francisco was in a class by itself as the “tribal rite” for the publishing industry. Today the shows are remembered, as Andy Tribute predicted they would be upon learning of their cancellation in 2005, “for first identifying the potential of the World Wide Web and the Internet to change the face of printing, publishing, and the media.”

Above all, they were exciting to go to. The Seybold Seminars were part Disney World, part think tank, and part San Francisco block party. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and everyone else who was anyone in popular computing used them as pulpits. Vendors of creative, prepress, and output technologies of all kinds lined up to exhibit at them.

The programs had the same authority and reputation as the namesake publications that inspired them: The Seybold Report and The Seybold Bulletin, periodicals that, as produced by their founding editorial team, have never been equaled in scope or quality as journals of record for digital publishing.

Some of the flavor of the Seybold events comes through in extracts from the CD: snippets of conference and expo information that seem backward- and forward-looking at the same time. By taking us almost all the way back to square one in digital prepress and output, the vendor blurbs highlight how much progress we have made since:

“The (Xerox) DocuColor 40 heralds a new era in digital document production—a four color process print engine that delivers an unprecedented 40 full-color pages per minute.”

“A.B Dick Company will be exhibiting the Itek Graphix Digital Platemaster designed to simplify the platemaking process. The DPM 2000 provides a digital equivalent of mechanical composing. The built-in scanner serves as a graphic camera, the computerized layout software replaces the stripping table and the digitized plate completely eliminates intermediate supplies.”

“Halftone, continuous tone, B&W and on-screen proofing devices will surround a live demonstration of the Trendsetter, Creo’s new semi-automated platesetter.”

“The (Indigo) E-Print 1000 is the world’s most widely used digital color press with over 500 presses shipped globally.”

“Using thermal plate technology, the (Gerber) Crescent/42T takes computer-to-plate one step farther by eliminating the need for a darkroom and processing units and replacing the argon laser of the Crescent/42 with a high-powered YAG laser.”

“Displayed are Tektronix Phaser™ color printers featuring Adobe PostScript™ Level 2 and full color output at speeds up to 5 ppm. Media sizes range from postcard to tabloid bleeds with printer resolutions ranging from 300 to 1,200 dpi.”

“Xeikon has developed the world’s fastest digital color print engine for heavy duty use and monthly volumes of 500,000 pages.”

The seminar titles speak for themselves as indicators of what was on publishers’ minds in 1996:

“Is There a Future for PostScript?”
“ROI of CTP & Digital Printing”
“Cost Models for Electronic Publishing”
“Will the Web Go Away If I Ignore It?”
“Java: Reality or Hype?”

So do the conference session summaries:

“With 17 digital plates and 42 models of CTP devices, there are more than enough choices. Users are now simultaneously deciding if they should implement CTP and on which CTP system and which CTP plate. Pass the Prozac, please.”

“What began in 1993 with two suppliers now includes over ten alternatives from copiers with RIPs to electronic presses to hybrid platemaking and printing systems.”

“How does the online experience differ from the traditional media of movies, TV, radio and print? What lessons about media interaction should publishers keep in mind when designing services?”

“Much like typesetting at the dawn of desktop publishing, the photographic industry is being turned on its head by imaging technologies and new distribution methods.”

No conference before or since has come close to matching the Seybold Seminars for topical richness. But the very diversity of the program probably was one of the things that led to its demise. As the “new media” pushed to the fore, printers started to complain that the conference sessions were too heavily skewed toward Web developers. The Web audience, impatient for their share of the limelight, saw too much emphasis on traditional print.

Changes of ownership, the post 9/11 economic downturn, and the dot.com bust in the printing space wrought their own damage, and by 2005, the Seybold Seminars had been left behind by the same digital publishing technology sectors that they had helped to create. In this article, Tribute and other old hands of the Seybold organization comment on what went wrong and what was lost.

But all wasn’t lost. The Seybold Report continues to be published as a newsletter by an information provider that acquired it in 2006, with many of the original journal’s writers as current contributors. And for those of us who can’t let go of 12-year-old CDs and other relics of the Seybold Seminars, their memory will always be as evocative of San Francisco as the Golden Gate Bridge or the cable cars.

One of the most interesting areas at drupa was in Hall 7 and it was the drupa Innovation Parc (dip). This hall differed from every other hall at drupa in that it was one where there were no manufacturer stands but instead every exhibitor, large or small, was treated the same. For the payment an exhibitor was provided with a pre-constructed exhibit area with a back wall stating the exhibitor name, a table top display area and an Internet connection. There were three sizes of display area available at three different prices (very small, not so small, and a little bit bigger). The concept of the drupa Innovation Parc that was conceived by its presenter Bernd Zipper, a leading German consultant and managed by Messe Düsseldorf, was to allow a lot of suppliers to show innovative systems in a simple environment. It was in fact very similar to the old ‘table top’ format that we used to see at Seybold Seminars in the USA in the 1980s. To exhibit in the drupa Innovation Parc a company needed to show an innovative product or products. As such it was not limited to small companies. HP, SAP, Agfa and Océ were among the exhibitors.

The drupa Innovation Parc was presented overall by HP but then there were different areas of the Parc presented by other organizations. These areas were as follows:

dip Creative Production Parc presented by Adobe
dip PDF + XML Production Parc presented by Global Graphics
dip Print + Production Parc presented by Agfa
dip Print Buyer Integration Parc presented by AlphaPicture
dip JDF Experience Parc presented by Heidelberg
dip Document Management Parc presented by Compart
dip Online Communications Parc presented by Kuhnert

In addition to the specific Parcs there were also two stages at which continuous presentations were given throughout the day.

dip JDF Experience Stage presented by SAP
dip stage presented by Adobe, Kodak and Heidelberg and powered by Océ

In addition to the above Océ was the dip Official Print Production Partner and Rockwell Automation presented the dip Sponsor and Business Lounges. There was a daily dip Report covering product reviews and news and this was created by a group of well known writers including John Parsons of Seybold’ George Alexander and Han-Georg Wenke of Zipcon Consulting.

This is the second drupa at which we have seen the dip. The first time in 2004 proved the concept and this drupa it grew to be a real success with more than 130 exhibitors and 3,000 sq meters of space.

It is not feasible to do a commentary on the exhibitors as both time to assess them and space to write about them was limited. However one can say that the dip is becoming one of the key areas at drupa. It is where one can see many of the innovations that will impact upon the future of this industry. At the dip this year we saw many innovations that showed how the Internet is a critical element in modern publishing and printing. The dip will be back in 2012 and I feel that attendees should make this one of the first places they visit on their next drupa visit, as I’m sure it will have some of the most innovative technologies to be seen then.

Heidelberg is introducing a number of new systems into its Prinect workflow. These include the Integration Manager and the Scheduler. This now makes a very complete workflow, and I would think that no other supplier can approach the range of products supported and extensiveness of the Prinect workflow. In the area of press suppliers I don’t see any other manufacturer that can be considered to have anything even slightly comparable. Heidelberg also has probably the highest number of MIS systems validated for full JDF/JMF connectivity to Prinect. At drupa it was using its own Prinance MIS system.

One of the items I was most interested to see was the new Prinect Packaging workflow. Heidelberg is concentrating on packaging as a key area of growth and saw the need to develop a complete packaging workflow. When this was announced last year I was dubious of the decision. In the East Asiatic market Heidelberg had an excellent relationship with EskoArtwork, the world leader in packaging workflow. I felt at the time Heidelberg was wrong in not extending its agreement with EskoArtwork and deciding to do its own thing. Well, I was wrong. The new Prinect Package Designer approach is really excellent and very well thought through. There are two main components. The first is to handle the geometric package design and this employs an interesting approach that differs from market leading products like EskoArtwork’s Artios CAD. It uses a library of package elements to allow a package design in a CAD form for handling folding, creasing and cutting, and the package designer pulls these together and adjusts them rather than drawing a package from scratch. This product can take in existing geometric designs from specialist products and Adobe Illustrator and work on them.

The second item is Signapack Pro and this is a development of the well established Signastation imposition system. This allow a user to take in the geometric design and test it out in a 3D mode for correct manufacturing operations. It can be viewed in flat form of 3D, it can be rotated, viewed as a wire frame or a solid. It can then be step and repeated onto the sheet. The software allows a choice of different sheet sizes and available presses to be evaluated to asses which would provide the optimum material utilization. The image created by the designer as a PDF file is placed and adjusted on the package, and then stepped onto all the individual packages on the sheet. A neat facility is being able to provide reference numbers on the waste areas of the sheet so if there are problems in finishing a user can easily identify where the faults are to be found.

I found this new Prinect Package Designer package a very comprehensive solution. It is not as yet the equivalent of EskoArtworks solution, but from what I saw it is better than the packaging solutions from all the other prepress suppliers. I was amazed how good it was. It is ideal to take designs from creative designers and assign them to packages. It does not at this time reach up into the creative design aspects of packaging in the planning of the package around the product, not does it allow for viewing of special effects like embossing and metallic tints. As a good system to help Heidelberg sell a total packaging solution it is excellent and is a real potential competitor to EskoArtwork in the sale of packaging design and production solutions.

Heidelberg may have been emphasising its new XL range of presses and in particular the XL145 and XL162 but I still stick to what I said some years ago when speaking at a Heidelberg management event. “Prinect is the crown jewels of Heidelberg.”

RIT’s School of Print Media has been a leader in printing education and research for decades and groups within the school used the festival as an opportunity to display innovative methods of producing print.

A group of students and faculty researchers from the Open Publishing Lab — a cross disciplinary center that focuses on researching new methods of content creation and developing innovative applications to publish across various media – set out to show off a news delivery platform they developed that enables rapid reporting and publishing of the news to the web and print.

The publishing platform dubbed the Innovation News allowed a team of 25 student photographers, 12 student writers, and seven editors to cover RIT’s inaugural Imagine:RIT festival as it unfolded. Reporters and photographers across the RIT campus submitted content using wireless enabled laptops and digital cameras, and mobile devices such as the Apple iPhone.

The Innovation News platform bridges everyday graphic arts technology with Web-based content management systems using a mix of open source and proprietary publishing software. Content was collected using Drupal, an open source Web-based content management system. Drupal and Adobe InDesign were integrated using an XML-based data exchange. Xinet and DALiM TWiST were used to automate digital imaging and prepress processes.

The print-ready files were distributed to five locations on campus to be printed and were produced simultaneously on five digital presses including the Kodak Nexpress, Xerox iGen3, HP Indigo, and Canon imagePRESS.

Each printed newspaper included a two-dimensional bar code called a “Quick Response” or QR Code. The QR code enabled readers with smartphones a direct link to a mobile version of the Innovation News where they could use GPS and geotagging technology to pinpoint were the stories happened on campus.

During the festival, the OPL team published over 40 stories and hundreds of photos online and in four print editions. An archive of the content produced at during the festival including the PDFs used for printing are available at http://inews.cias.rit.edu/

Innovation is happening in print and I’m glad to see that its happening at the hands of students who will bring a fresh technological savvy perspective to the industry.

Microsoft’s press release has the details:

Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of Microsoft Office Live Document-to-Print Service option for the Microsoft Office Live Workspace and Microsoft Office Live Small Business Web services. Microsoft Office Live combines the power of software and services to deliver rich and seamless experiences to small companies that want to manage and print documents online. The new Document-to-Print Service provides a centralized place for document creators to view, edit and share, and now print Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.

“The printed document is crucial to running a successful business today, and companies that don’t have access to print risk missing out.” said Stephen Elop, president of the Microsoft Business Division. “With Microsoft Office Live Document-to-Print Service, we are making printing services available for small businesses to create an enterprise-like distribute-then-print infrastructure without the technology investment requirements. Our goal is to make it easy and affordable for small businesses to have access to a global print network.”

Microsoft Office Live Document-to-Print Service with Microsoft Office Live Workspace and Microsoft Office Live Small Business is being offered free of charge to customers during the beta program. Customers interested in participating in the beta program are invited to register online at http://www.Print.OfficeLive.com.

Microsoft expects to release the final public versions of Microsoft Office Live Document-to-Print Service services in late 2008. Although at this time the beta program is open only to U.S. businesses, Microsoft plans to offer beta programs later this year in international markets.

I have heard speculation that Microsoft is in talks with printing franchisers SirSpeedy, AlphaGraphics and Allegra Network to power the printing network.

For more April First News, Check out WhatTheyDon’tThink.com.

Special Note: This blog post is presented in the true spirit of April Fool’s Day. None of it is true, nor does it intended to reflect the strategy and intent of any real person or company.

And it has, WritersWeekly.com has been keeping tabs on coverage of event. There are 76 newspaper and blog articles today as of 12:21 AM Eastern. With 11 active forum discussions.

With no official statements from BookSurge or Lightning Source a lot being written is speculation.

Printing Industry analyst Heidi Tolliver-Nigro comments on call she had with Lighting Source, “I called Lighting Source (through whom I print all of my company’s books) this morning to ask about the issue and was told flatly “not to worry about it,” that LSI customers would be getting a letter on the issue shortly. Apparently, there is a clash of lawyers going on even as we speak.”

Clash of the lawyers, and of the muscle. It’s unclear if any long-term contracts exist between Amazon and print on-demnd printers such as Lighting Source. But even without contracts Lighting Source has a lot of distribution muscle to flex through their parent company Ingram Book Group who are responsible for drop shipping a lot of books sold by Amazon.com

Within a few days this issue will be resolved with Amazon.com and BookSurge reversing their decision to block Lighting Source and other print on-demand providers.