Only with the benefit of potted history do revolutions take place overnight. Even so, as the newest next best thing digital print is starting to show its age.
With improving bottom-line performance amongst the adventurous few who have taken up the technology not yet sparking a headlong rush towards adoption, sceptics might be more favourably disposed to test-drive New Frontier possibilities courtesy of a no-risk service on offer from Borble, a Rhyl-based start-up now selling digital capability to the trade.
Business partners Barry Griffith and Gavin Stark, whose print expertise has been finely honed within the well-proven gravure arena, recently spent a quarter of a million pounds on Europe's first Xeikon 330 digital press, with the bright idea of producing customised wallpaper borders.
Producing short-run labels was an afterthought, but has already developed into a core activity in its own right. In partnering with established label converters, Borble has plugged a previously unfulfilled gap, offering a service equally applicable to printers looking to service existing customers' low volume requirements and those simply after a handy outsource to which they can apply a margin.
Griffith has a couple of apparently contradictory observations to make that should give established labellers food for thought. One is a crumb of comfort in that he has discovered some affinity between the gravure and digital process as represented by Xeikon. It's a matter of how the inks perform.
Secondly, and of a more cautionary provenance, he points to a disparity between what digital can offer and a prevailing mindset as to what conventional printing entails. Therein lies a potential danger zone to which he says converters should pay heed.
While the chaps from Rhyl clearly know their cylinders from their pdf files, more importantly they've had the commercial nous to spot a marketing opportunity when they see one. Others will follow, and not all of them brought up on a diet of inks and varnishes.
