We have just recovered from the first Drupa in eight years and by all reckonings it was a great success, demonstrating the advances in many areas of sustainability, productivity and of course technology. We have another four years until the industry returns to Dusseldorf for the next show, appetites already whetted by the experience of the exhibition just closed. This week another quadrennial event opens, the Olympic Games, taking place this year in Paris. The interval between events is not the only point of comparison between the Games and Drupa, which has been called the Olympics of Print.
For the Olympics is not only about athletic prowess, teamwork and winning medals. It is not just the four years of hard work come to fruition in a short duration and focused way with the eyes, and cameras, of the world fixed on whichever arena is staging this event. The Olympics will always show the very best in technology as well, including print technology. The Los Angeles games in 1984 introduced satellite transmission of photographs thanks to a supposedly portable device called the Satlight from Scitex. It was more luggable than portable, but for the first time photographers could send their work back for publication from anywhere on the planet.
Eight years later, and before the internet, Xerox introduced networked digital printing with a number of Docutechs dotted around Barcelona to allow people to print out the latest results from any event anywhere across the city, no phone calls, no teleprinter, just digitally printed pages. At the same games, Crosfield Electronics rigged up a first international ISDN connection to send scanned images taken on the day back to Japan for publication in news magazines. It was not as fast as Linford Christie in winning the 100m that year, but was a tremendous leap forward for the printing industry. It will be hard to emulate the impact of those breakthroughs, nor of the widespread use of large format digitally printed branding at London 2012. Paris though will surely deliver something for print.
When print was among the medal winners
We have just recovered from the first Drupa in eight years and by all reckonings it was a great success, demonstrating the advances in many areas of sustainability, productivity and of course technology. We have another four years until the industry returns to Dusseldorf for the next show, appetites already whetted by the experience of the exhibition just closed. This week another quadrennial event opens, the Olympic Games, taking place this year in Paris. The interval between events is not the only point of comparison between the Games and Drupa, which has been called the Olympics of Print.
For the Olympics is not only about athletic prowess, teamwork and winning medals. It is not just the four years of hard work come to fruition in a short duration and focused way with the eyes, and cameras, of the world fixed on whichever arena is staging this event. The Olympics will always show the very best in technology as well, including print technology. The Los Angeles games in 1984 introduced satellite transmission of photographs thanks to a supposedly portable device called the Satlight from Scitex. It was more luggable than portable, but for the first time photographers could send their work back for publication from anywhere on the planet.
Eight years later, and before the internet, Xerox introduced networked digital printing with a number of Docutechs dotted around Barcelona to allow people to print out the latest results from any event anywhere across the city, no phone calls, no teleprinter, just digitally printed pages. At the same games, Crosfield Electronics rigged up a first international ISDN connection to send scanned images taken on the day back to Japan for publication in news magazines. It was not as fast as Linford Christie in winning the 100m that year, but was a tremendous leap forward for the printing industry. It will be hard to emulate the impact of those breakthroughs, nor of the widespread use of large format digitally printed branding at London 2012. Paris though will surely deliver something for print.
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Prayers for the future of the print industry
Prayers for the future of the print industry