Sunday, February 1, 2009

Grub Street Printing Newsletter #9 Feb./March 2009

Consumer Product Safety Comm.

The CPSC kicked off February by delaying implementation of the stupidest law of 2008 for one year. The requirement for lab testing and certification of lead content in children’s books will be reviewed further.

Borders Turnaround

Borders has replaced turnaround expert George Jones with turnaround expert Ron Marshall as CEO.

Kindle 2

While Wall Street analysts admit Amazon’s e-book reader Kindle is hardly a success yet (even at a million sales) the introduction of Kindle 2 has the digerati swooning in ecstasy.

New features include a joystick, smaller buttons to avoid accidental page turning, and faster page loads.

Everything I’d want in a book.

The Anti-Kindle

If, on the other hand, the evolved book form brings you comfort, check out www.featherproofbooks.com/Mambo.

Review their titles, print out and fold a Mini-Book and discover a publisher for whom books are part of the creative process, not just an information delivery system.

Frankfurt Survey

About 1,000 attendees (out of almost 300,000) at the Frankfurt Book Fair volunteered for an industry survey. 40% believed digital distribution would surpass traditional book sales by 2018.

One third of those surveyed disagreed and thought it will never occur.

It’s a Different World

Even if you don’t have a name and avatar in the virtual online world of Second Life, you now have an incentive to visit at www.secondlife.com. Sign up (free) and log in to tour “Printalution”, a virtual island where basic print workflow and methods are presented for graphic arts students and the print community.

New Uses for Old Presses

A starring role in the movie Seven Pounds with Will Smith and Rosario Dawson is saved for a 1955 Heidelburg Windmill letterpress. An evil little Chandler & Price hand fed letterpress is the featured villain.

Is the growing popularity of letterpress printing a reaction to digital output? Does toner smell as good as ink?

Also, Konarka (Lowell, MA) produces flexible plastic solar panels on an offset printing press originally used by the defunct Polaroid Corp.

New Uses for New Presses

Toppan Printing (Japan) prints tenth generation LCD television color filter masks as well as photo masks used in semiconductor production. Toppan has net sales exceeding 16 billion dollars and is the world’s largest printing company by revenue.



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