DAL Quarterly Meeting
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The next meeting will be likely to take place later in the Summer. For further information contact hannah@leafagency.com
July 14th, 2004
Meeting Notes, Tuesday 14 th July - William Goodenough College
JPY Sponsor Update (pdf)
Please see Hayder Assam's presentation, as posted with these notes.
Adfast Update (powerpoint presentation)
Please see Rob Fogwill's presentation, as posted with these notes.
Font Management in OS X
Richard West from Apple introduced this session by acknowledging the issues some people are having with font management in OS X. Some FAQs and a white paper are posted alongside these notes. (large pdf approx 4.5meg)
Richard handled over to Bob Campbell from Extensis who did a generic presentation on some of the issues of font management in OS X and what to watch out for. Bob's presentation is posted with these notes.
Stephen Douglas mentioned a free font tool that might help:
www.versiontracker.com - search for a file called Font Cache Cleaner
Alternatively, follow this link.
It was suggested that we invite font manufacturers to a future meeting to discuss the issues with font licensing and legislation. People do not want to have to re-purchase their entire font collection just to move to OS X. It was also suggested that we get someone from FAST to attend a future meeting and inform us about its activity.
Workflow from a broader perspective
Brent Martin raised some interesting points for future DAL discussion in his presentation, we have yet to receive a copy of these notes.
It was pointed out that there is a lack of training on all things digital that causes a disparity in the market. Financial pressures are causing companies to cut costs rather than improve quality, especially publishers. The need for a reference print standard was agreed, as no matter what happens during the workflow, the success of the print is always what is judged. There are ISO standards, but do people know how to apply these to their work?
It was suggested that we try to liaise more closely with the PPA with regards to their current activity, especially the new developments with Pict4Press. We should also ensure other standards committees know what we are discussing.
Drupa Highlights
Chris Bunnett gave us his take on Drupa this year, which was all about workflow integration and JDF. He made it clear that people must realise JDF is a messaging format, not a replacement for any existing file format.
Chris felt that prepress was slightly swallowed by other elements of the workflow and has now become an amalgamated. Everyone is doing prepress, but little reference is being made to the history of the role or the experience required to do it. People are being told, buy this tool and it works which oversimplifies this specialist role.
PDF is still the preferred file format and people are finally appreciating the problems involved in colour management - the theory works well but in practice it's a bit harder!
Wide format ink jet printers were there in force. Spice technology is also something worth noting.
In summary Chris felt that Drupa indicated that the industry is contracting and referred to it as minitiarisation of the industry. It is now easy for very small set ups to produce high volumes of work with minimal capital investment. What's more, the bigger manufacturers are beginning to handle multiple elements of the workflow, rather than just concentrating on one specialist area.
Markzware Sponsor Update (PowerPoint presentation)
The presentation given by Tim Cox is posted alongside these notes.
Next Meeting
The next meeting will take place during Digital Print World on Wednesday 27 th October am, time, location and registration details tbc. Please email hannah@leafagency.com if you have any specific topics of discussion you would like raised.
Any other business
John Charnock raised the issue of whether there should be a London based community to share files, similar to sohonet? Suppliers are interested, but are users - let us know what you think.
Disclaimer: Please note that this document is merely an interpretation of what took place at the meeting. It is intended to be as non-vendor specific as possible and does not quote any individual directly.
Attendees (apologies to anyone who is missing)
| Andrew Wilson, Unity | Antony Kay, ACCA |
| Annette Kilroy, Mack Brooks | Antony Barrington, Admagic |
| Antony Newson, Alphagraphics | Dominic Hughes, ICP |
| Simon Ball, Rex Advertising | Lisette Sens, EFI |
| Bruce Finn, Headley Brothers | Adrian Davis, Quickcut |
| Daniel Eddington, Quickcut | Michael Parmenter, Quickcut |
| Bob Russell, Dupont | Gary Tate, StorePoint |
| Derek Milne | Andrew Bailles-Collins, OneVision |
| Sergio Mora, Jimenez Godoy | Pamela Raftery, St Ives |
| Nick Finegold, Icon | Paul Bunion, EFI |
| Robert Berkeley, Express KCS | Jim Davison, Wyndeham |
| Tara Dixon, Wyndeham | Darren Ayler, Wyndeham |
| Barney Cox, PrintWeek | Bill Greenwood, Gilchrist |
| Bob Campbell, Extensis | Brent Martin, Colour Emotions |
| Bryan Sunderland | Chris Bunnett |
| Craig Santus, W!N | Danny Leach, TMP |
| Darren King, Square | Ed Armitage, Modrus |
| Gareth Perry, Eaglemoss | Graham Leeson, Fuji |
| Hannah Newberry, DAL | Harvey Jones, exponential-e |
| Helen White, exponetial-e | Manjit Sidhu, exponential-e |
| Hayder Assam, JPY | Iain Boyle, OneVision |
| Jim Duggan, Headley Brothers | John Charnock, St Ives |
| Kevan Hamman, JPY | Manveer Arkaan, KPG |
| Marcus Kirby, ES | Mark Stone, RivCom |
| Martin Hamilton, Express KCS | Mike Palmer, Atelier |
| Mike Finch, Atelier | Paul Sherfield, Missing Horse Consultancy |
| Richard Lack, Vio | Richard West, Apple |
| Rick Goody, StorePoint | Mark Alford, StorePoint |
| Will Morrish, Interoute | Tim Daly, Interoute |
| Rob Brack, RBI | Rob Fogwill, Adfast |
| Roy Topp, APPA | Ruth Clark, Splash |
| Savio Luis, Vio | Simon Evered, B1 |
| Stephen Douglas, FEP | Tim Cox, ROI |
| Tony Hodgson | Vince Pitman |
| Steve Davies, ES |