Graphic Arts Magazine March 2018 | Page 6

Editorial Two compelling versions of print Filomena Tamburri Over the last month I saw print as both forward-looking and nostalgic We all experience print in several ways. Over the last few weeks, I got to see and experience both the exciting ways in which print is moving forward, and the role it played in a more nostalgic era. The first experience was EFI’s Connect user conference in Las Vegas. These manufacturer user groups are often some of the most positive events in the industry. This one was no exception. About 1,000 attendees converged to hear the latest updates from EFI and some of its partners and to hear customer stories. Based as it is in Silicon Valley, EFI has been adept at making the connection between printing and the disruptions that emerge from the home of Apple. For example, CEO Guy Gecht some time ago began talking about the imaging of things, a riff on the internet of things—IOT—the notion that anything that can be connected to the internet will be connected to the internet, from your smartphone to your juicer and every object in between. In Gecht’s view anything that can be imaged will be imaged— from tiles to wallpaper to your juicer. And this capability enables a new definition of print: any material that needs an image on it is print. This is how EFI has structured its product portfolio and now has devices that image just about anything. Developments showcased at Connect include the new Nozo- mi packaging press, an example of a new trend that promises to image and personalize boxes that arrive at your door with all your online bargains. Driving all of this, of course, is smart automation and inkjet, a technology that prints without touch- ing substrates. Everyone at Connect who is adopting these technologies, said Gecht, is making money. That’s the forward-looking view of printing. But I recently experienced a more nostalgic perspective when I went to see “The Post,” with Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, a film that retells how The Washington Post exposed the Pentagon Papers. The film is about journalism, liberally dosed with allusions to today’s social and political climate, but it resonated with me because, somehow, my go-to position is still to think of print and journalism as intertwined. When The Washington Post ran those ground-breaking stories exposing the lies the US federal government had told about the Vietnam war, the news was distributed through print. Print was an integral part of the communication chain that brought the news to readers and, by extension, a player in the democratic traditions that pro- tected freedom of the press. In some ways the film is also a love story to print. There’s the antsy ink-stained press operator anxiously waiting for the 6 | March 2018 | GRAPHIC ARTS MAGAZINE Guy Gecht, EFI CEO, on left, talks to clients during his annual fireside chat at the Connect user conference go-ahead to start the huge webs so he can make the distribu- tion deadline. There’s the rush and excitement after finally getting the word, and the close-up of that button being pushed and setting the press whirring. There’s the camera almost loving