Big Picture - April 2019 - 20

inside output

Monitor This
We're in the business of large format; don't sell your shop short using outdated,
small screens. | by Craig Miller

BIG PICTURE

April 2019

f you're a veteran Big Picture reader, you know I've
written a few columns over the years about facilitative
technology - that is, enabling technologies that help us
become more efficient, competitive, and generally
successful in our industry. I've covered such tools as
powerful computer workstations, phablets, and drones,
among other things.
I confess to always having been a certified tech wonk.
Let's take a stroll down memory lane, shall we? In 1965, you
could find me walking to my dorm with stacks of punch
cards; I was writing code for a psychological research
project in Fortran to run on an IBM 360. I bought my first PC
in '79 and, a few years later, my first laser printer, the Apple
LaserWriter, in '85 for $7000 - that printer gave me the
ability to do page layout with Postscript fonts. I could go on,
but I'll spare you the full list.
Fast forward to today. As I type this column, I see the
letters appearing on a 5K-resolution, 27-inch monitor. To my
left is a 34-inch 21:9 ultrawide monitor. (I paid about a grand
to add that last one to my desktop four years ago.) And I
should clarify that this is in my home office, not my office
office. There's a theme here: monitors.
Why am I fixated on monitors? Your monitor is the
interface into what your computer is doing for you. We work in
visual media and in no other industry is the visualization
displayed on computer screens more important. Let's take
some time to consider the often-underappreciated workhorses
fueling shops around the globe.

PREPPING FOR PRINT
When it comes to digital printing, most of us typically
think the technology we live and die by is the digital printer.
But ponder this: If you can't send a print-ready file to your
printer, it doesn't matter what machine you have. It could be
a seven-figure Super Balagoola 9000 or a four-figure POS
CRAIG MILLER is a principal shareholder in Las Vegasbased Pictographics (pictographics.net) where he is also director
of military and law-enforcement projects.

100. The printer remains sitting on dead ready, with the
optimal word, dead.
There is so much to do at the front end to get the file to the
printer: You have to interact with the customer in-person or
through phone or screen; provide an option and a quote; receive,
check, and sometimes fix a file (or create one out of whole
cloth); and RIP the file, all before the printer outputs a single
dot. A lot of that work involves staring at a computer screen.
If you're an owner or manager, there are a plethora of
documents and programs that populate your work computer's
screen(s). On the business end, you may have sophisticated
customer relationship management software, Microsoft Office
Suite, and some form of workflow management. Then there's
the internet, email, Slack, and text messages. Of course, your
CSRs, project managers, and salespeople also have these
programs. At our office, almost everyone has Adobe Creative
Suite, not just the designers. This is (humor me here) by
design: Employees responsible for processing the RIPs also
need to have multiple graphic files open at once, and displaying them large on a screen helps the technicians look for
problems in the files.
At our shop (and most others like it), it's common for
everyone to have four or more applications open at a time,
some with multiple documents displayed. The reality is that
keeping print jobs flowing smoothly from station to station
and department to department requires a ton of simultaneously

http://www.pictographics.net

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Big Picture - April 2019