![]() Heidelberg says that because Prinect is. Print. Action - Canada's Graphic Communications Magazine. The evolution and rebranding of ICON Digital Productions positions a large- format- imaging pioneer as one of North America’s most unique and powerful visual communications companies. View the embedded image gallery online at. They are monitoring some of the highest profile static print and dynamic digital signs controlled by ICON’s newly minted Media division, including all the visuals hanging in Toronto’s Dundas Square and way- finding screens directing passengers at Pearson Airport. Free download becoming a product designer becoming a product designer ebooks available in PDF, MOBI, EPUB, DOC, and RTF. Home; Submit Book; Request; Report Broken Link. 2010 July - Gifts & Premiums. Our advanced production equipment includes a Heidelberg Prinect CP2000 Center bisect printing machine. En Peliculotas nos dedicamos a subir peliculas completas en espa. Responsible for thousands of digital signs across Canada for Blue Chip clients like Shoppers Drug Mart, ICON Media illustrates the reach behind one of the country’s most unique visual communications companies. Designed to deploy national signage networks by procuring all of the necessary hardware, developing business plans and ultimately managing ever- changing content for clients, ICON Media is well- positioned to take advantage of an evolving wireless world. It provides the company with an irresistible vehicle for C- suite strategy discussions with clients. The bedrock of the parent company, however, is formed by ICON Visual with one of Canada’s most powerful technological infrastructures for large- format imaging. ICON Visual dominates the company’s Markham, Ontario, facility, which any grizzled graphics pro would recognize by its curved- glass fa. This division generates more than half of the parent company’s annual revenue, which in its most recent fiscal year amounted to just under $4. Fortune 5. 00 cosmetic and fragrance clients, Hudson’s Bay Company and Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. ![]() ICON Print is the third pillar of the company’s All Things Visual strategy, developed through a divisional rebrand in December 2. After years of outsourcing the production of offset- print jobs for its Blue Chip clients, ICON in January acquired Toronto Trade Printing, bringing decades of 4. The move creates a multifaceted communications manufacturing company powered by ICON Media, ICON Visual and ICON Print. Visual evolution. Last year alone, ICON oversaw the printing of more than 2. The company’s executive team has spent the past several months looking at both commercial and trade printing operations to purchase in the Greater Toronto Area. We look at it as just another communications medium. In fact, our numbers tell us there is a lot of growth in print still,” says Juan Lau, President of ICON Digital, who co- founded the company in 1. Peter Evans and Peter Yeung. Lau explains his priority was to purchase a well- established printer to immediately provide the offset knowledge ICON lacks after two decades of building a roll- fed digital printing operation. Approximately 8. 0 percent of what ICON Visual now prints is produced with Durst roll- fed machines. Lau describes this as a key differentiator for ICON because its production has been built around a square- metre pricing model, driven as much by finishing and fabrication as by print production. We can get that buttoned down pretty quick. Printers getting into our space still go off the rate- card mentality,” says Lau, describing what he sees as traditional offset pricing based on number of sheets produced. Lau explains he never set out to build ICON as a traditional printing operation when the partners founded the company. In 1. 99. 5, the Internet had not yet penetrated the minds of most people, fax machines and phones were the dominate business tools of the day, and modems were limited to speeds of under 2. Still, Lau wanted the company name to hold the word digital, as well as production, because he initially wanted to start a video- production company. The key word ICON came to him one day when a radio host referred to Madonna or Michael Jackson, he cannot recall which, as the Icon of Pop. Prior to opening ICON, Lau was running a photo- enlargement company producing monochrome engineering drawings and architectural blueprints, generating slim margins, pennies per sheet. Lau describes his large- format eureka moment arriving in the early 1. The idea of taking a file and outputting larger- than- life graphics on just about any surface, whether it is vinyl or textiles, or what have you, nobody was really doing it.” ICON’s first large- format machine was a Xerox electrostatic printer and, Lau explains, he and Evans decided to put a stake in the ground as a new type of printing operation. Lau explains he was driven to own the market that ICON would serve, akin to Mc. Donalds being synonymous with burgers, Coke with soda, and Rolex with watches. Advertising agencies were immediately drawn to the new output possibilities ICON could provide with one- off large- format printing, even if they would often turn to offset or screen technologies for longer runs. He felt ICON’s challenge was not about topline sales and he began to search for more efficiencies in the facility. ICON also brought in a new Chief Financial Officer, Alex Christopoulos, who Lau credits with greatly improving cash flow and the company’s overall financial health. Media evolution. Lau describes the years from 2. ICON as he and Evans also decided to stop producing trade work for other printers and instead sell direct into the commercial market. It was one of the best decisions we could have made.” Around the same time, ICON’s future would be influenced by the arrival of significant developments in large- format digital imaging technologies with a new wave of UV- based inkjet systems. ICON threw out all of its older- generation, heavy- solvent inefficiencies and made significant investments in UV technology, which Lau also credits with improving the company’s bottom line. ICON’s attention to the bottom line through the latter half of the decade would soon prove critical as The Great Recession of 2. A year before the printing industry plunged into the throes of frozen marketing budgets, Lau points to the significance of another technological marvel on ICON’s future. Lau explains wireless technologies broke down barriers that had been fortified for years by the need to run so much cable and obtrusive hardware. Less than two years after the arrival of Apple’s i. Phone, ICON purchased a two- person AV company called Gridcast in 2. ICON had previously worked with Gridcast on a project for the Bank of Montreal, which wanted to integrate a digital projection within a large banner with a cutout. We saw very quickly in the first year that the model wasn’t really going to be a sustainable model,” says Lau. We will charge you a three- year management deal,” says Christopoulos, as an example of how the company can work with a client to finance a network of in- store screens, while ICON is truly interested in ongoing content management services. Christopoulos explains the company, to a much lesser extent, hopes to take the same approach with some of ICON Visual’s work, where they might provide a client with a free banner stand with a commitment to print work to cover it – ideally, changing out the print regularly – over the next several months. With The Bay, ICON Visual is also starting to print on magnetic sheets that can be applied to painted walls, speaking to the division’s growing attention on developing repeatable visual systems with clients. The continuing innovation in both ICON Visual and Media have developed a strong reputation south of the border, where the company now produces around seven percent of its work.“. They have local guys down there. It was actually our Media division because they are a lot more proactive when it comes to new innovations,” says Lau. So that is how we have been using digital media, more as a way to penetrate organizations from the top down, as opposed to starting with procurement and working our way up.” ICON Media has been using Virtual Reality for almost two years to show clients, like Sport Chek’s CMO for example, what their stores will look like with large- format print. As ICON Print is developed, the company plans to leverage strong C- Suite relationships to drive work onto litho presses. In fact, Lau envisions an emerging media procurement approach that will benefit the rebranded position of ICON’s three divisions: “I am hoping as more Millennials get into positions of power and decision- making, they are going to say, . This is a media budget. We need to line up all of our marketing together.’ I think those budgets are going to change. We are kind of placing a little bit of a bet that way.”Under ICON’s new multifaceted media vision, Lau explains it is important to hold a true offset- printing presence beyond outsourcing. The ICON rebranding of All Things Visual is going to take us to the next level.”. In January, Ricoh acquired Toronto- based Avanti Computer Systems, which has been a leading developer of Management Information Systems dedicated to the printing industry for more than three decades. The software company was founded in 1. MIT graduate Dr. Richard Wallin, after a friend described the difficulties of putting an accurate job estimate together. In 2. 00. 4, Patrick Bolan and Stephen Mc. William took an ownership position in the company and began to develop a business model that would sustain consistent growth to place Avanti MIS as a North American ERP printing power. In July 2. 01. 3, Ricoh made an initial strategic investment in Avanti as the MIS developer was preparing to launch its new generation Avanti Slingshot solution, which was released in the fall of that year at Graph Expo. One of the most- advanced MIS products in today’s print market, Avanti’s new Slingshot platform was built around a completely new coding infrastructure and the MIS sector’s highest level of JDF certification for automation. With the full acquisition by a world- imaging giant in Ricoh, Avanti now holds the potential to become a true global power by leveraging Avanti Slingshot as an MIS newly built for today’s multifaceted business of print.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
August 2017
Categories |