HP Indigo Press 5500
Written by Matrix2 Advertising Monday, 02 August 2010 15:40
A high-end advertising agency based in Miami, Matrix2 has long served the hospitality and real estate industries with marketing design services and traditional offset printing. Seeing the growing demand for personalized printing, the company recently acquired an HP Indigo press 5500, Matrix2 first foray into the strategic growth arena of variable printing. Customization adds a whole dimension to our printing services, says Matrix2 Production Manager Luis Rodriguez.
Personalization is a big selling point now, especially in the hospitality industry, which drives a lot of direct mail marketing.
Matrix2 chose an HP Indigo press 5500 with HP IndiChrome six-color printing, the HP SmartStream On-Board Print Server and HP SmartStream Designer software for creating imposition and personalization designs from QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign documents. Rodriguez attended HP Press Operation for New Operators Training, followed a month later by the HP Production Optimization Site Visit. The site visit was instrumental in establishing an efficient digital workflow and building his competency as an operator, Rodriguez says.
We'd never had variable data before and after the initial five-day training when it all so new, you remember maybe half of what you learned, he says. The HP Optimization follow-up visit cut through the learning curve. Our HP Production Specialist answered all our questions and went over maintenance routines. Most importantly, he taught us how to implement the variable data software into a workflow.
Each of the four days of the HP Production Optimization Site Visit is dedicated to key issues, such as color calibration, troubleshooting, substrates, the press GUI, diagnostics and software. The visits can be tailored to the needs of the specific shop or a specific individual. Operators learn best practices in a hands-on environment rich with the opportunity to review actual customer work samples.
The result, Rodriguez says, is more informed, more confident press operators, and fewer service calls. Matrix2 now profits from producing personalized postcards, event tickets and other variable print work for customers including hotels, resorts and builders. In addition to expanding into the growing market for variable print, the company also completes short static runs on the HP Indigo press 5500. It costs less, Rodriguez says, and takes roughly the same amount of time start to finish that it took just to create offset plates.
The HP Production Optimization Site Visit made a huge difference, Rodriguez says. It helped us take advantage of all the capabilities of this powerful machine and its software.
