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