Digital Ad Lab UK (DAL UK)

February 2009

New main sponsor – censhare

Rupert Firmstone explained they are German firm developing publishing system – covers print and web publications in a single system, which it claims is unique.  Integrates with other business systems – crm, erp & cms.  Can continue to work if database goes down.  Clients include NatMags and Dyson in the UK. Natmags has a 750-seat consumer magazine system, while Dyson uses it to manage the localisation of its global marketing communications. 

Co-sponsors for 2009

London Graphic Systems, EFI, Targetcolor, Fujifilm, Kodak.

John Charnock updated the meeting on a number of DAL Initiatives

Quality project

The aim is to identify elements of quality other than colour. White paper not published yet. Looking for participants who can comment on quality issues such as trimming, marking and scuffing.  We want to get people involved. Aim is to start from photography and come up with xml to control quality at the handover points all the way through to finished despatched products. We want to get some dialogue going on what really affects people. Suppliers including equipment, paper and ink firms have already committed to the scheme. To get involved, email hannah@leafagency.com.

Student mentoring

Website www.student-mentor.com

Idea is to support students, initially on a number of courses at LCC, through monthly two-hour meeting between a mentor and a graduate or post-graduate student to help them through their course. A minimum of six of the two-hour sessions per year must be face to face.

We’re also doing tutor mentoring too to keep tutors up to speed with the industry in general.  Form on the bottom of the site for anyone who wants to be a mentor. Target is to launch in next educational year in October.

Developed software for the website with webcam and chat functions, whiteboard, notes and files, file sharing, archiving and a schedule that registers all contact people have including a time line with tasks.  Aim is that the software takes the administration overhead out of the process – the tutors will be able to monitor student’s progress without overhead for mentors.

Rene Carayol wants to take it beyond LCC to make it a national thing.

We’re looking at a fundraiser for part time admin support, a dinner on 21April with 100 tickets.  Meeting with the students about what they want from mentoring scheme.

Looking from design and photography through print media management. And MA Publishing.

Andy Psarianos Late binding colour initiative

• Question was raised at some point - were there commercial or quality advantages of not committing to the colour standard of an ad right before printing. Is there a benefit of the printer doing something sensible to convert it before printing?
• Being deliberately vague at this stage
• Set of test files to illustrate how it could be done. Set of files that reflect how things are being done today. Today you get ads from different sources with different separation philosophies that have to match on press and in track.
• If you let printer decide the black generation is it better?
• Bob Marchant supplied a bunch of professional quality photos for the test.
• In process of creating the files
• Paul Sherfield of Missing Horse Consultancy and Jonathan Moore of Conde Nast involved.
• Once we have the files they will be printed on different devices and processes.
• HP7000 and KBA 47 Karat at FE Burmam
• Web Offset tests at St Ives.
• If anyone wants to do gravure – drop us a line.
• Will be using Fuji workflow for colour conversion – and open to others.
• Marcus Kirby asked who is doing RGB-CMYK, and suggested using people who does this in the real world.
• I can tell you the answer will be the result when the printer does the conversion, it’ll be better.
• Paul Sherfield. I’m going around looking at how my clients set up workflows. Common problem is systems set up to strip out all profiles.
• Andy Psarianos: It’s bound to be a long and messy transition. Biggest issue will be education and understanding. In last five years, there has been an increase in understanding of colour management, the technology hasn’t really moved on.
• John Charnock There has been an increase in the number of output devices used. Now seeing printers with lots of different print engines and we’re tying one of their hands behind their backs by separating to a CMYK format before we give the file to them. It’s like when we started with the PDF workflow. Once you go through the initiatives on how to set up files and systems it can work.
• Andy Psarianos It will happen in closed loops to start. Advertising is where the problem is worse. In catalogues files come from same source. Ads – diverse sources and the most expensive print.
• Proofing is an issue. Proof based on expected reproduction. My view is proofs bring up more problems in the process in this workflow.
• Paul Sherfield Common colour appearance- brings up a load of issues that need answering.
• John Charnock There will be a need for client education. Do brands want common appearance or a widest gamut?  It might be a different decision for different applications.  One brand may want a punchy lambda on the wall and colour matched less bright results on its marketing collateral. Another may want everything to match.
• Marcus Kirby The problem is more human than technology. Concern of neutral greys – warm or cold – get lost on press.
• Andy Psarianos You’re talking about 1-2%, we need to get the gross 25% right. With curves and ink optimisation – people are doing colour management anyway.
• Paul Sherfield We’ve got to start somewhere very focused and then broaden it out.
• Andy Psarianos Everything leads me to believe a late-binding workflow is better in every respect. But it’s going to take a long time. It’s proof of concept.
• John Charnock There will be a series of these before we get it right. At Ipex 2010, there will be hybrid workflows – dig sheetfed and possibly digital web presses. Publishers and advertisers will not know where it’s going. Have to give printers the tools to do it correctly. The competition we face is not another printer it’s a different media. We’ve got to make it easier to use print.
• There is a risk if we put the onus onto the printer of the abandonment of responsibility upstream, but that’s the role of documents and responsibility in the workflow. I don’t think there is a wanton disregard of quality further up the chain. We take responsibility in DM and retail because we’re dealing with brands not publishing professionals.
• Andy Psarianos What we’re really trying to test is can you get a better results as determined by matching the proof. Need to stay focused otherwise we’ll get a huge test with too much data to get anything meaningful out.
• My reason about being so passionate about getting this colour management issue in people’s minds is that this is what is holding things back – PDF/X 4 and 5. These will allow those issues to go away. Define originating object properly – you can’t do that unless people accept that colour management is a good thing, it’s a question of educating people.

Importance of job tickets Andy Psarianos

Andy Psarianos. Ad job ticket initiative – started by AdsML – started defining important aspects of dealing with an advertising workflow – in defines the world. They’ve defined a vocabulary and how you should describe those terms. Clear vocabulary used the same way can be passed around electronically to use to do some very clever things.

GWG said there’s a real need to move content back and forth intelligently. AdsML got some really good stuff – but too complicated. Let’s use the good stuff. Add some more stuff that publishers, printers and agencies need.

At the heart of the issue are two commercial bodies, someone who wants to buy an ad and one that sells ads. Around that are all the other roles associated with fulfilling that.

In old days of ISDN we use to get ads at Burman for 50 mags. Everyone labelled the file “file to Burmans”. That’s the problem – we need to use a ticket to transfer info about magazine, edition etc.  If everybody agrees on the vocabulary things can be passed around.

• Mike Palmer Adstream There is a free XML job ticket service built on the backend of the database we run.
• John Charnock We need to get the media buyers here. The drive has to come from the brands and their trade bodies. We need to explain those guys are paying 15% for chaos. People are questioning what the media buyer is doing.
• Stephen Irving – MGN – systems have the capability of generating reference numbers, but it doesn’t get passed down the chain by the media buyers.
• Mike Palmer  – we could solve this by lobbying the media buyer – via the brands.
• Philips tried it and failed.
• Media buyers have asked us about this. But if you take the gloves off, the media buyers don’t want transparency – because there is no audit trail, and a lot of ads never appear in print.
• Marcus Kirby Brands don’t even know what their spend on print ads are.

Sponsor update from Targetcolor

Malcolm Mackenzie updated the audience on Alwan/Enfocus PDF Standardizer, a software tool for pre-flighting and correcting submitted files for both content and colour quality.

He also highlighted the new press colour quality control tool with another new product MyPressXpert, which is a further development by Mark Priest of his PressSignature package. MyPressExpert has a database behind it with 7m readings with the aims of building up to a system that will flag up press mechanical faults before they become a problem.

AOB Don’t forget DAL members are welcone to attend the Apple Tech Series on February 26th, March 5th and March 25th – for further information email techseries_uk@euro.apple.com