Big Picture - August 2019 - 8

on
the EskoWorld Recap: Automation for Accuracy
road
RECAP

EskoWorld 2019, held June 24-26 in Nashville, gathered more
than 550 users of Esko's design and prepress hardware and
software products for automation of packaging, labels, and
wide-format printing in an event connecting buyers and
suppliers. The three-day agenda catered to the needs of Esko
product users, including an educational track specifically for
brand owners. Continuing last year's event theme, "Packing
Connected," the 28th annual conference kicked off with a
session featuring Esko leaders.
Touting the half million users of Esko products worldwide,
Chris Miller, Esko VP North America, shared that Esko has
contributed more than $8.2 million in software and hardware
to 37 universities "to develop the next generation of leaders,
users, and customers in the industry."

'A DANGEROUS BUSINESS'
Given the impact of external changes, Mattias Bystrom, Esko
president, called packaging "a dangerous business." He cited
three trends impacting the packaging supply chain.
* Everyone is a designer. With the growth in e-commerce
and social media, anyone can try their hand at designing.
Pantone (Esko's sister company) found that 86 percent of
designers have little to no understanding of how color is
manufactured, which puts greater reliance on software
products to translate color from design to substrate.
* Small brands are on the rise. Small brands and upstarts
are changing the industry of consumer goods. These
companies are able to grow quickly, although their knowl-

edge of packaging is limited, Bystrom said. "These new
competitors are quick and agile, and bigger companies have
to adapt to meet them," he added.
* Physical components of packaging are changing. The
chemical compositions of ink are changing, and substrates
are changing - often to recycled or recyclable materials.
"If consumers trust the information on the package, then
they trust the brand," Bystrom said. "And 71 percent of
consumers trust a product's packaging." With its products,
Esko aims to enable its users in the packaging industry to
safeguard consumer trust with accuracy.
PRODUCT UPDATES
At the event, Esko showcased new or updated products,
including those specific to the wide-format digital print
industry. With the speed of digital printing, "finishing
automation demand has grown," said Andy Warnement, Esko
VP digital finishing products. With that demand in mind,
Esko continues to enhance its finishing solutions. The
Kongsberg C Edge is an entry-level addition to the Kongsberg
cutting table line. The upgradable table is designed for
signage and corrugated packaging.
A motorized roll feeder for Kongsberg C64 cutting tables was
created specifically for efficient cutting of soft signage materials,
to address the expanding use of such substrates in digital printing.
An upgrade to Esko's ArtPro+ software includes conversion of design files to native PDF to embrace the increasing
reliance on PDF editing in the prepress process.

on
the 'Take a Look' at Ricoh Interact
road
RECAP

BIG PICTURE

August 2019

Interact, Ricoh's annual user conference, hosted 65 sponsors,
140 customers, and a plethora of industry leaders, press
members, and Ricoh executives and partners at the Denver
Marriot Tech Center June 4-7. The event offered networking,
tours of the Customer Experience Center, and educational
sessions (49, to be exact). In previous years, the event has

centered around the company's continuous-feed inkjet
presses, but Interact 2019 broadened its focus to the wideformat digital print industry.
Big Picture's Editor-in-Chief Adrienne Palmer led a panel
session touching on just that: "Bridging the Gap: Commercial
Meets Wide Format." The session helped connect Ricoh's
current commercial print users and the company's latest
wide-format offerings. The panel consisted of three former
commercial-only PSPs who shared how they successfully
transitioned to the wide-format digital print world. Attendees
were given a unique chance to hear about accomplishments,
challenges, troubleshooting, and more, straight from the shop.
Panelists included:
* Bill Ensley, founder of Bear Printing (bearprinting.com)
in Milwaukie, Oregon
* Nathaniel Grant, president of Graphics and Marketing
(GAM, graphicsandmarketing.com) in Sterling, Virginia
* Andy Poole, owner of Time Printing Solutions Provider (TP,
sacramentoprintingcompany.com) in Sacramento, California
Continued on pg. 10

http://www.bearprinting.com http://www.graphicsandmarketing.com http://www.sacramentoprintingcompany.com

Big Picture - August 2019

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