Stratasys has just redefined 3D custom printing with the introduction of the only 3D equipment that prints in vivid color using multiple materials.
To grasp what this means, let's pause for a moment and jump back in history to the 1980s, back to the genesis of desktop publishing. After coding type for years on dedicated typesetting machines, I remember how exciting it was to look at a large monitor and see magazine pages laid out in columns in PageMaker. Back then, the monitors displayed only black and white images—literally. There were no levels of gray and no color.
My fiancee and I just installed a standee for 300: Rise of an Empire. It was large, complex, and surprisingly reminiscent of another large format print standee we had recently installed for The Hobbit. Not that the graphics were in any way similar. Rather, it was the structure of the standee that gave me a deja vu.
I learned something new today about book printing.
A Book Printing Case Study
A client of mine wants to produce a 68-page, 5.5” x 8.5” perfect bound print book of poems. It has a press run of 2,000 copies, and she wants French Flaps (the flaps at the face trim of each cover that fold back into the book, giving the impression of a dust jacket). It's an upscale “look.” The text is black only, and the cover is 4-color process, printed on the exterior and interior covers.
I found two intriguing books in a thrift store yesterday and quickly snapped them up for my fiancee. Both exemplify the element of surprise and the tactile quality only available in a print book.
The introduction of the new Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 75 Anicolor is really quite exciting. In an age of digital custom printing, Heidelberg has made dramatic strides in--of all things--sheetfed offset lithography.
You can inkjet print on practically anything these days, from garments to wallpaper to sheetcakes. So I wasn't surprised when I read an article about custom printing on wood (“Digital Printing for Wood: Advantages in Finishing,” in Woodworking Network, by Karen Koenig, 1/24/14).