And what a morning it was. Romano’s thought-provoking presentation not only encompassed a world tour but also a romp through print history all the way back to Gutenberg. He pointed out it has only been in recent history – since the end of the Second World War – that the industry began to evolve so rapidly. Any printer struggling with today’s business and technology pressures can seek small comfort in knowing they must take on a lot more in a shorter period than their predecessors.
Another noteworthy point was that the switch from letterpress to offset litho was incredibly quick. According to Romano, within seven years [of offset’s introduction], letterpress was almost gone. Compare that with the rise of toner-based digital print and it’s a somewhat different story. Launched to much fanfare 15 years ago at Ipex 1993 by Xeikon and Indigo, it still hasn’t overtaken offset as the dominant printing process.
Romano highlighted two reasons why. Despite the potential for personalisation, toner-based technologies have struggled to increase speed and size. He claimed that, with a couple of noticeable exceptions, including Xeikon, the format and speed of toner has remained stubbornly similar since its inception and, therefore, hasn’t been able to compete with offset for a huge range of applications. All the while, offset has continued to develop. In Romano’s words, it has shown phenomenal innovation, such as the three-minute makeready that has raised the bar so that digital can’t get into longer runs.
However, there is now another contender – inkjet – whose rapid rise, Romano said, had not been predicted and which now has the potential to take volume from both toner and offset.
He had a cautionary tale for those who dismiss inkjet today, citing one toner press vendor who was quoted in The Wall Street Journal in the opening days of Drupa as decrying inkjet as only good for long runs and low quality. Romano recalled letterpress vendors making similar sentiments about litho before it became the dominant print process and the benchmark for quality.
While we’ve got a couple of Drupas to go before we can truly compare inkjet’s rise to dominance against litho’s earlier ascent, it will be interesting to see how many cheque-books will be out next Ipex when the inkjet concepts of this Drupa have become commercial contenders. I suspect Romano is right and we will see a fundamental switch in production methods in the next few years. However, he also highlighted how important the development of pre-media has been. The next generation of presses will be capable of personalisation, so there’s no time to waste in getting to grips with data and more efficient ways of dealing with customers.
Barney Cox is executive editor, Print Group Haymarket
Print evolution set to continue apace
Following on from Drupa, our publisher organised for Frank Romano, professor emeritus at Rochester Institute of Technology, to come and share his world view with the Haymarket Print Group team and a select few from the UK print industry. It was very literally a world view - his boat trip from the States en route to Drupa had taken in stopovers in all corners of the globe before he arrived in Dsseldorf.
