How Will the 2018 USPS Rate Increases Affect Publishers and Marketers?

R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company announced its work to create tangible moments for Kindli, a social media alternative focused on positivity and connecting people with acts of kindness. Kindli Cards, printed by RRD, are Kindli’s proprietary, patent-pending method of tracking kind acts all around the world. These cards include a unique, user-specific QR code and personalized messages. Kindli’s strategic partnership with RRD allows for this level of customization. This includes workflows specific to variable programming required for personalized codes and automated order entry, enabling quick speed-to-market regardless of order quantity.

Tidewater Direct announced that it has doubled down on its inkjet strategy with the purchase of a Screen 520NX inkjet press, which was installed in September and is currently operational. With an emphasis on uncoated stocks, the new press complements its existing 520HD which has now been in service for over 3 years. Both presses are located in Centreville, Md. and staffed 24 hours per day, and capacity is exclusively and uniquely sold to the trade. Prior to purchasing its first inkjet press, Tidewater saw an opportunity to partner with letter shops that were being asked to provide inkjet printing but did not have substantial volume to justify the investment in inkjet. This model which Tidewater calls an “inkjet revolution”, sought to supply the same wholesale customers that purchase forms and direct mail inserts inkjet printed product, to include rolls of forms, folded personalized letters, self-mailers, and post cards. With the 2nd inkjet press, Tidewater not only increases its capacity which improves flexibility, but the Screen NX adds a new economy and capability for uncoated direct mail letters.

Everything that has happened to printing firms as a result of the pandemic is unprecedented. This means everything they have done in response to it has obliged them to improvise. To rethink. To come up with new ways of protecting their employees. To pivot to completely different methods of interacting with customers. In short, to innovate. As we've done the past several years in Printing Impressions, we profiled six companies that remain alive and well in the printing industry. This year, we’re presenting these portraits of Innovators in tribute, not just to the companies themselves, but to every printing business that has survived the trials of 2020 by being innovative. Here is a profile of one of our Best-in-Class Innovators. Does innovation have a distinctive aroma? It does at H&H Graphics. In fact, innovation there smells remarkably like … tacos. That was the olfactory enhancement the Vernon Hills, Ill.-based specialty screen printing business gave to a holiday gift wrap for Taco Bell by infusing the paper with the scents of each of the snack’s principal ingredients. When the wrap was offered on Amazon, reports Michelle Leissner, president and CEO of H&H Graphics, “it sold out in a matter of minutes.”