Inkjet & Digital Printing
Fedrigoni 365 – Pushing the boundaries of print
Tuesday 15. December 2020 - At Ricoh we like a challenge and the Fedrigoni 365 2021 calendar certainly pushed boundaries at every stage of the print production process. Working with UK design agency TM, specialist fine paper manufacturer Fedrigoni wanted to create a 2021 calendar that embodied the theme of community and togetherness.
By Erwin Busselot, Business Innovation & Solutions Director, Commercial and Industrial Printing Group, Ricoh Europe
It also wanted to build on the success of previous editions – the entirely black 2018, the entirely white 2019 and a recycled rainbow of colours for 2020.
The aim was to test the outer limits of what is possible with personalisation.
The request was to find an automated way to randomly combine hundreds of separate designers images in ten different colour ways to create 4,000 unique calendars. We were also asked to employ the fifth colour capabilities of the Ricoh Pro C7200x to elevate results.
We responded by designing an end to end integrated workflow of software and hardware technology, along with selected partners software and hardware. We used our technology to dynamically create each calendar based on intelligently randomised data and rules-based templates.
Using the best Fedrigoni papers for digital print technology, the book was brought to life by selecting the range of Extended Gamut Colours (ECG) that were to be used in the design. The creative team at TM worked with the Touch7 Extended Colour Gamut system which has over 700 colours to choose from. It choose 20 colours from the Touch 7 range which were then then print tested on Freelife Vellum to ensure expectations were met.
Our next challenge was to understand how we were going to create all of the combinations of the images in the different colour choices.
We used our data management solution /data.mill to create a dataset of contributing designers and set algorithms to ensure that no design was used twice and each design appeared an equal number of times. Our industry leading variable data publishing (VDP) solution, FusionPro, automatically typeset and laid out the calendar pages and dynamically created the covers and jackets. I will detail more on these solutions in my next blog.
Fed 365 2021 demanded a high level of automation along with job integrity, so we decided to use RICOH TotalFlow BatchBuilder software in conjunction with Enfocus PitStop Server and Ultimate Technologies Impostrip to manage the unique variable artwork PDF files. BatchBuilder created batches of sequentially numbered blocks of eight books. It also queued the files ready for printing.
We chose blocks of eight books to support efficient processing on the guillotine and loading into the feeder of the MeccanoTecnica Universe binder that finished the blocks.
The uniqueness of each calendar does not end there.
Using the capabilities of the five colour Pro C7200x digital colour press, we added a different high impact colour to each calendar using the Touch7 Extended Colour Gamut system. This means that an image can appear throughout the 4,000 calendars in a different colour, bringing a new visual aspect to these truly individual calendars.
This innovative compact Pro C7200x offers neon, white, clear and invisible red toner options for highly creative, and high impact print applications. For Fed 365, its ability to dramatise print with neon pink and yellow, as well as white, are exploited to full effect.
The challenge was risen to. Fedrigonis brief was met. Work on this project that showcases the power of collaboration and creativity was as exciting as it was fulfilling. It is a fantastic celebration of how creativity and digital print technology can be harnessed and combined to produce something truly special.