Category Archive

Ralf Schlozer provides an overview of the light-to-mid production inkjet devices making an impact in the European market.

Interview with Mike Zimny of Toppan Merrill on serving clients and staying nimble with inkjet. Part of our “lane changers and game changers” interview series.

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WhatTheyThink’s Richard Romano and Inkjet Insight’s Elizabeth Gooding teamed up for an overview of the impact of inkjet on the mailing industry at the MCS Mail Manufacturing Summit.

Mary Schilling and Elizabeth Gooding will be talking about all the weird and wonderful things that are possible with inkjet. Expect lots of examples of cool applications and things you will want to know if you are thinking about branching out.

With full color production inkjet, advanced composition, and customer facing message management tools readily available, sophisticated variable messaging is not a technical challenge. The problem is that companies have been teaching their customers to ignore the message areas for years, and now they need them to pay attention.

In previous editions of this series I wrote about the main applications production inkjet is being used for, focusing mostly on roll-fed inkjet – the dominant production method so far. This is different for cutsheet inkjet, which is far more versatile and is used across a number of applications.

Direct mailers are heavily invested in inkjet. In the US 42% of direct mail page volume runs on inkjet – that’s only 6% behind offset and growing. Now, commercial printers

Whether you are working on direct mail or transaction printing, designing for ease of navigation and to deliver a clear message is just as important as the color scheme or graphics used. Each color carries a message or an emotion and will provoke a response. Choosing the colors to support the intended tone of the mailing is important – particularly when there is a call to action that needs emphasis.

Whether it is a website, email or direct mail campaign, catalog or postcard, always design with a purpose. Every word, color, font and material should have a purpose and intent.  They need to communicate your message. This is what separates good design from bad.

Mike Herold, Director Global Marketing, Production Inkjet Technologies at RICOH talks about the cost benefits that inkjet brought to the transaction printing industry over the past decade and the increasing pressure that transaction printers face as inkjet has evolved into new markets.

Action Mailers, a major, family-owned, direct mail provider located near Philadelphia has completed the latest upgrade in their multi-phase transition from toner to inkjet. Marc Hoy shares lessons learned and the key benefits they have found from their investment.

Our most recent white paper, sponsored by RICOH, examines the many factors that combine to create a quality inkjet solution for a particular market need. The production workflow and quality sensitivity varies significantly from one application segment to another. While some companies may be replacing one technology platform with another, others are challenged to maintain compatibility between inkjet and toner or offset platforms.

Ralf Schlozer provides an overview of the direct mail market in Europe and the impact of regionalization, postal regulations and GDPR on inkjet adoption. He also defines trends affecting the market for 2020.

Offering new ideas to your organization while leveraging the USPS promotions may set the stage for positive change in 2020. Using inkjet platforms to enable print mail operations to enhance the usefulness of mail and take advantage of the various USPS promotions, while delivering value to consumers and postage savings to their organizations. A win, win, win.

Ralf Schlözer, EU correspondent for Inkjet Insight provides the first in a series covering inkjet in Europe. Here’s an overview of inkjet market for transaction printing key market trends in individual countries. Welcome, Ralf.

Most inkjet applications require paper. For many reasons, compatible inkjet paper is in short supply. If you are involved in the inkjet print supply chain, or a buyer of the finished product, it is in your best interest to help clear hurdles to identify and qualify compatible papers and to communicate availability as efficiently as possible.

While every workflow should be unique to the service provider, thinking of the workflow solution as unique to a particular application segment can limit a company in terms of their workflow design and potential for page growth on their inkjet device(s). Designing reusable components within your workflow, and “stubbing in” steps for other types of work you may do in the future, will make your workflow system more flexible, extensible and auditable.

Alex Joos of Group Joos, located in Belgium, joins us for a deeper dive into their use of inkjet across multiple operations. Group Joos provides transaction printing and direct mail services to a very diverse market using inkjet across all areas.

Is inkjet eating toner’s lunch? In some areas, yes. But, as long as there are many types of print organizations, there will be a need for many types of printing devices. One size does not fit all. Your mileage may vary. Definitely see the dealer for details.