Remember the Castrol campaign, “Oils Ain’t Oils”? The same can be said for digital print.
There’s digital print, and then there’s digital print.
Digital printing has evolved significantly. While toner-based technologies continue to provide effective solutions for short-run and variable print, the arrival of high-production inkjet has changed what customers can expect from digital printing.
Traditional digital print
For many years, toner-based digital printing has provided an economical and flexible solution for shorter print runs.
Dry toner delivers fast, cost-effective production and strong colour reproduction, making it well suited to a wide variety of everyday commercial print applications. Liquid toner technologies such as HP Indigo subsequently raised expectations for digital colour quality, consistency and specialty applications.
Both technologies have played an important role in the evolution of digital print. Today, production inkjet is taking digital printing into new territory by combining quality, flexibility and significantly greater production capacity.
The production inkjet advantage
At Finsbury Green, our Canon varioPRINT iX3200 brings together three things customers increasingly demand: exceptional print quality, high-speed production and attractive economics.
Using advanced water-based polymer pigment inks, the iX3200 delivers sharp detail and consistently high-quality colour across a broad range of coated and uncoated stocks.
With true 1200 dpi printheads and processing, media capabilities from 60 to 350 gsm and speeds of up to 320 A4 images per minute, the iX3200 delivers the flexibility of digital printing at an impressive production scale.
For larger jobs, that equates to approximately 9,145 SRA3 images per hour.
This combination makes production inkjet ideal for a wide variety of applications, including:
- Brochures and marketing collateral
- Personalised and targeted direct mail
- Catalogues
- Books
- Manuals and publications
- Versioned communications
- Variable data and personalised marketing campaigns
Because every sheet can contain different content, businesses can take advantage of sophisticated personalisation and variable data without sacrificing production speed.
Quality meets productivity
This is where production inkjet really stands apart.
The Canon varioPRINT iX3200 combines the quality expected from premium commercial print with the flexibility of digital and the productivity required for higher-volume work.
Advanced colour management, intelligent nozzle control and high registration accuracy help maintain consistent output throughout production. The press can also move efficiently between different jobs, media and personalised content, providing considerably more flexibility within the production environment.
For customers, that can mean faster turnaround times, greater flexibility and more attractive economics, while maintaining a high-quality finished result.
More possibilities for digital print
The evolution of digital printing is also changing the types and volumes of work that make sense to produce digitally.
Production inkjet can provide an effective solution for jobs that require multiple versions, shorter production cycles, targeted content or changing quantities. Rather than producing large volumes of identical material, organisations can print more relevant communications in the quantities they actually need.
For marketers in particular, this creates opportunities to combine print with customer data and personalisation, producing communications that are more targeted without introducing the production limitations traditionally associated with customised print.
Takeaway
Different digital print technologies continue to have their place, and the right production method will always depend on the requirements of the job.
For customers looking to combine outstanding print quality, speed, personalisation, flexibility and cost-effective production at scale, production inkjet provides a compelling option.
At Finsbury Green, our Canon varioPRINT iX3200 gives customers access to the next generation of digital print, producing up to 320 A4 images per minute with consistent quality across a broad range of applications.
Because there’s digital print.
And then there’s production inkjet.
