Gold Ink/Hall of Fame Gala Adopts Reception Format to Encourage Networking In a significant departure from its traditional sit-down dinner and formal awards program, Printing Impressions magazine and its parent company, NAPCO Media, hosted upwards of 200 print professionals, vendors, and industry dignitaries at its Gold Ink Awards Gala on Sunday evening in the Hyatt McCormick Place Hotel Regency Ballroom. Jack Glacken Norvin Hagan Andrew Mandell Niels Winther The two-hour networking reception served to honor the first-place Gold winners from the 2015 Gold Ink Awards competition, and attendees also voted on the People’s Choice Award for best overall Gold Ink entry. The high-energy, invitation-only event took a moment to salute the 31st induction class for the Printing Impressions/RIT Printing Industry Hall of Fame. The members of this year’s class are: • Jack Glacken, President, TGI, Philadelphia • Norvin Hagan, Founder and CEO, Geographics Inc., Atlanta • Andrew (Andy) Mandell, Founder and Chairman, Data-Mail Inc., Newington, Conn. • Niels Winther, Chairman and Managing Partner, Think Patented, Miamisburg, Ohio Live-music entertainment for the networking event was provided by the Bluewater Kings Band. The evening also served as a fundraiser to support the future leaders of the printing industry. Ten percent of all sponsorship funds raised during the event will go into the new Printing Impressions Print Visionaries Scholarship fund, which will be used to support students at RIT, Cal Poly, Clemson, and other institutions supporting education in the graphic arts industry. The fund is dedicated to the memory of Irvin Borowsky, Founder of Printing Impressions/NAPCO Media, who passed away in late 2014. Growing the Industry’s AWorkforce: SkillsUSA t GRAPH EXPO 15, printers have the opportunity to visit Education Main Street, a collection of representatives from colleges, universities, and educational organizations aimed at providing qualified, well-trained workers for the print industry. New on Main Street is The Hiring Hub: Closing the Skills Gap! (Booth 570), where printing industry leaders are showcasing their involvement in the SkillsUSA competition to make students aware that printing can be a rewarding and profitable career. The booth gives printers the chance to see the equipment used by contestants in the competition and learn how printing companies can help expand the program to their community. SkillsUSA is a partnership of students, teachers, and industry working together to ensure America has a skilled workforce in a wide array of careers. Through SkillsUSA training, graphic communication students compete at the local and state level in head-to-head competitions where they are evaluated for real world employment in the field of graphic communication. The best students advance to a national contest where they compete in a technical knowledge test, an oral professional assessment, production planning, digital workflow, digital press operations, offset press operations, and finishing. Companies and organizations including, Xerox, RR Donnelley, Baum, Print Craft Supply, Quad Graphics, RICOH, Heidelberg, GAERF, and Printing Industries of America are providing support, equipment, materials, and direction to SkillsUSA to improve its graphic communication offerings and make the programs more relevant to the employment needs of the print industry. AR Demos Bring Print to Life If you haven’t seen one of the Augmented Reality (AR) demonstrations available on Education Main Street, put one on your “to do” list. The popularity of AR is growing as a way to add excitement and interactivity to print. SkillsUSA (Booth 570) wants you to see it live. One of the most prominent AR booth demonstrations is thanks to SkillsUSA’s national print competition, where students compete in the creation of a print job from start to finish (see above story). During the one-hour break provided during the competition, students are exposed to new technologies Attendees can try AR live on the show floor in Booth 570. that enhance the experience of print. For the 2014 competition, this was Augmented Reality. One of the AR posters from the competition is being used in the SkillsUSA booth so visitors can experience the magic, too. Quad Graphics, one of the sponsors of Skills USA, facilitated the AR portion of the project. During the competition, one of the teachers videotaped the students at work. The teacher created a stop motion video and sent it to Quad Graphics that night. The next day, the SkillsUSA team had poster-sized AR versions of the print up as a surprise for the students. Posters can be scanned with Actable’s AR app. When the app recognizes the AR markers, it brings up the video of the students overlayed on the poster. The SkillsUSA booth also offered other examples of AR during the demonstration. These include a print that brings up a global map of DuPont locations in bright red markers that users can click on and be taken to related mini-sites. Another brings up an image of a Rolex watch that seems to pop out of the page and can be moved around and manipulated. “We bring new technology to the students, and every year we try to make it bigger and better,” said Kip Jarrett, chairman of the print contest. “Many of the students have never seen AR before, so it’s neat for them to experience it. We wanted to show them that there is so much more they can do with print.” The SkillsUSA AR posters are available to scan at the RICOH (1231) and Xerox (613) booths. Both companies are also sponsors of SkillsUSA. HP Rebrands Web Inkjet Series; HAnnounces New Presses P (Booth 1202) is rebranding its line of production inkjet presses to get the most out of the PageWide brand that signifies quality, productivity, and reliability. The HP PageWide Web Press series includes the T200, T300, T400, and T1100S series. HP also announced two new models: the PageWide T470 HD and T480 HD. “These as the most productive color inkjet web presses,” said Eric Weisner, VP/ GM of HP’s PageWide Web Press Division, “with our value proposition: high quality, high productivity, and high versatility.” To increase the economics of inkjet printing, HP also announced the HP Priming Solution, available in 42" and 22" configurations. The duplexing Priming Solution can be installed inline or nearline and can run at speeds up to 600 fpm. The Priming Station is intended to make coated offset media inkjet-compatible, while at the same time lowering the cost per print. In March, HP had announced that customers had printed more than 100 billion pages on the HP Inkjet Web Press. “In a few short months, we are now at 120 billion pages,” said Weisner. “Our customers are producing about four billion pages a month.” HP also announced enhancements to the HP Indigo 7800 Digital Press, including enhanced on-press color management tools in press software version 11.4, as well as an in-line spectrophotometer. Available this month, media fingerprinting, 3D color calibration, spot color refinement, and other color management tools streamline the process for color standards certifications, ensure accurate color matching on a variety of substrates, and provide color consistency across presses and sites over time. The 7800 also features the new Optimizer, an on-press production management tool that helps manage the print queue, prioritize print jobs, plan substrate usage, and improve efficiencies. It enables continuous printing and proofing in parallel without the need to break between jobs, improving customers’ productivity up to 50% per shift. Eric Weisner, VP and General Manager of HP’s PageWide Web Press Division 16 September 15, 2015 | GRAPH EXPO Official Show Daily | PrintingNews.com
GraphExpo Show Daily September 15 2015
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