Archive for July, 2008

Harrumph to Drupa: A Respectful Response

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008

“...drupa is just an elaborate evasion for vendors who are utterly unable to explain their products satisfactorily or provide useful and relevant demos at home. Drupa also encourages hurried and half-baked decisions by users who are unable to gather their own information from other sources.” Yikes! I don’t consider myself an apologist ...

Font Conference

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008

Font humor from CollegeHumor:

Harrumph to Drupa: a Curmudgeonly Perspective

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008

I’ve been in the industry for a little more than 30 years, which qualifies me as a certified OLD GUY. It also qualifies me for consideration as a curmudgeon – though certainly not yet in the league of Romano and Vinocur. So here’s my take on drupa – ANOTHER one that ...

More on MagCloud

Monday, July 21st, 2008

A month ago I covered the launch of MagCloud, an HP Labs research project that is that is evaluating the use of a Web-enabled print production workflow to streamline the publishing of magazines so small independent magazine publishers and content owners can publish custom publications without all the print and ...

Paper Magazines Can Be High Tech, Too

Monday, July 21st, 2008

Esquire will include an electronic display on the cover of its September issue. The display will use E Ink technology (the same technology used by the Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle) to flash "the 21st Century Begins Now." The New York Times has the details: If it does wind up in the ...

Frank Romano’s History of Printing in 15 Minutes

Thursday, July 17th, 2008

At drupa Frank Romano gave WhatTheyThink a video on the history of printing he created with his students a few years back. In the video, Frank walks you through major milestones in the history of printing. From Johann Gutenberg to papyrus to important contributors in the development of type ...

Wish You Were Here

Thursday, July 17th, 2008

While I’m sure Dr. Joe could very easily conjure up the necessary postal data to confirm or refute a similar trend in the U.S., in the U.K. at least—if this blog post on the Guardian’s site is to be believed—postcard writing (or, more to the point, postcard mailing) is experiencing ...

Green Thoughts

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to declare a permanent moratorium on the phrase “It’s not easy being green.” It seems that almost every article or blog post in recent memory has featured this as a head or subhead. It makes me want to get rid ...

2007 Household Diary Study Available

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

The USPS has released their 2007 Household Diary Study. The Household Diary Study is a multi-year study started in 1987 that aims to provide a "comprehensive and continuous description of the mail originating and destinating in American household." The report is available here (or as a PDF here). Print in the ...

Heidelberger Druckmaschinen Hits 10-Year Low

Monday, July 14th, 2008

Bloomberg.com Europe reported on Friday that Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG has hit a 10-Year Low after JPMorgan downgraded the company's recommendation from neutral to underweight: JPMorgan cut its recommendation to ``underweight'' from ``neutral,'' arguing the Heidelberg, Germany-based company lacks growth and its reorganization plan is insufficient. The manufacturer said yesterday that it's ...