Ink-jet advances; new developments may spread personalization to more magazines

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, March, 1990 by Cary Peyton Rich

Ink-jet advances

WATERLOO, WIS.--Ink-jet messaging, now used only by a handful of publishers, could well gain greater favor this year as new technologies enable messages to be made longer and easier to read.

Right now, for example, ink-jet systems can only print insert messages vertically--parallel to the spine. But new systems are being developed that will allow ink-jets to form messages that read horizontally, as does the rest of the magazine. So far, none are used commercially.

"There's more to [the technology] than meets the eye," says Lloyd Radcliffe, senior vice president of manufacturing for Perry Printing. Perry, he says, is developing a system for printing perpendicular to the spine on an inside signature, but the method has not been perfected.

Developing technology "certainly will help a magazine to sell selective imaging," says David Bordewick, director of marketing for the magazine group at R.R. Donnelley, "We'll wait to see what the impact is. But it should be a positive influence in the whole area, and that's one reason we're looking to develop it."

"I expect you'll see the technology become available on a widespread basis sometime in 1990," says Norm Stern, national sales manager for the graphic systems group of Cheshire, a subsidiary of Video Jet that produces ink-jet systems.

Stern says his company is also aiming to create longer messages with ink-jet. Most systems, he says, use ink-jet technology once the signatures are on the bindery line, which limits the number of lines that can be printed. Cheshire has developed a system that can ink-jet messages just before the pockets are put on the bindery line, as well as once they're on the line. This allows as many as 36 lines of message.

Multistation advances are also being tested to allow more than two messages inside a magazine. Stern credits second class publications with increasing the demand for new and better methods.