Inkjet & Digital Printing

HP Indigo Press Gives Clarodigital Competitive Edge

Friday 11. July 2008 - HP today announced the growth of Madrid-based, Clarodigital, the digital printing department from Clarografic, using its HP Indigo press 5000.

Clarographic, a successful privately owned offset litho printer with 32 employees, provides a wide range of customers with brochures, books and commercial print since 2004. By 2007, customer demand was such that the company established Clarodigital, a dedicated digital printing business based on its HP Indigo press 5000.

“We had a clear vision of the future and were receiving requests from customers for digital printing,” said Francisco Aguirre, CEO and joint owner of Clarographic. “We considered the HP Indigo press to be best suited to complement our existing litho offset business.”

Aguirre notes that a deciding factor in whether to print digitally or conventionally is often determined by whether the run length justifies the make-ready of an offset press. HP Indigo press customers call this the “cross-over point.” This is the number of copies below which printing digitally is more cost-effective than printing conventionally, and with fresh technological developments from HP Indigo, that number continues to rise.

Another convincing factor is that delivery times for jobs printed on the HP Indigo press 5000 are delivered in between four and twenty-four hours.

The Surprise Effect

“A key reason that we purchased the HP Indigo press is what we call the ‘surprise effect,'” said Aguirre. “The market, especially in Madrid, has the view that digital printing is lower quality than offset printing. To dispel that myth, we printed a brochure about digital printing and sent it to potential customers with a magnifying glass to show that our digital printing has halftones like offset.”

Clarographic’s press isn’t used solely for short-run jobs and attracting customers; the company also uses it for proofing jobs that Clarographic will later be printed either digitally or conventionally. The proofs can be printed on final substrates and multiple copies produced so customers can see exactly what they will receive.

“As a successful commercial printer, we believe that HP Indigo presses are the only real alternative to conventional print when it comes to customer satisfaction,” said Aguirre. “With the HP Indigo press, we are able to convince them to print digitally.”

The combination of digital and conventional printing, and in-house laminating, creasing and binding capabilities means that Clarographic and its customers are enjoying the benefits of complementary technologies to drive their business success.