Large format in motion? Scale automation, score big.

A recent presentation at the Artevelde Hogeschool made it all the more clear that this was, is and will be the way forward for the print sector (pictures here). The “older” generation has the expertise, the young ones the knowledge of new media. And yet I became painfully aware of few printers out there are embracing the opportunities a scaled automation has to offer. Sure, they’re optimizing workflow procedures to reduce human error in print creation. By why stop there if you could also reduce human error in business generation?

The keynote by Dave Sips from WEAREONE.world showed the utmost importance this company pays to print marketing to truly have the festival live and breathe the look and feel of what is considered the best dance festival in the world. Print appeals to the senses, makes the soul embrace the happy-go-lucky mood. Happy attendees, great atmosphere – all print-induced. The happier the attendees, the better the mood and the more the print budget is validated for. If Tomorrowland can validate print, anyone can. Follow our lead here.

3Motion purchased CHILI publisher a few years back to solve a packaging issue. As we got to testing, we actually found out that the integration of the solution into a software tool of our own making, would make for an even better use of our investment. 3D visualisation in packaging was a perk, but the templatizing feature proved the real moneymaker in our case.

We have a few show organizers in our portfolio. One of them offers a fixed booth design for which participants provide a design, which then gets printed and installed. Regardless of all communication efforts and guidelines, nearly every design arrived too late, in a wrong setup or with plenty of errors in it. Our team got (rightfully) aggravated, overstressed and overworked. So, we created a software solution that allows participants to log in online, upload a design and approve it for print. Not show brand compliant? Denied. Too many errors? Denied. Not print-ready? Denied. But all fixable online, thanks to a CHILI publisher created template. All the design or marketing people have to do, is keep their information and graphic assets at hand. They can follow instructions in the template, create everything online and not have to worry about another thing. Signed, sealed, printed, delivered. So they can make better use of their time.

We were taken aback by how much time and stress this saved us and our show organizer customer. By scaling creative automation, we actually scaled our business, with franchise requests rolling in from show organizers in neighboring countries.

Investment-induced scaling – that’s how CHILI publisher evolved into a Universal Graphics Engine and why it received a Fespa EDP award. Never stop going hungry for more. There’s so much more to be done in the visual communication sector.

Want to hear the full story? There’s a recording of my presentation – drop me a line if you want the link or link with me all together.

© Photo by Corneel Van der Cruyssen // CorezPhotography