February 20064 GRAPHIC IMPRESSIONS

Something unusual happened at the July 2005 ICON4

Illustration Conference in San Francisco.

Every illustrator who submitted a sketch per an advanced

registration request received a full-color, personalized

book consisting of more than 300 drawings by attendees,

including well-known artists Milton Glaser, Seymour

Chwast and Craig Frazier. The book quickly became a

sought-after and talked-about souvenir.

San Francisco-based artist and illustrator Jeffrey

Decoster explained its appeal: “The privilege of looking

at an artist’s sketchbook is like asking someone very per-

sonal questions after they’ve had three martinis. You get answers.”

The book also answered another question posed by many among the

influential and discriminating creatives in attendance: how was the book

produced? ICON4 sponsors Adobe Systems, Inc. and Xerox Corporation

created it with the latest digital technologies to showcase a creative appli-

cation of their products and promote digital color variable printing.

The book is part of an ongoing strategy Xerox and other industry lead-

ers have adopted to increase awareness and understanding among creatives,

print buyers and specifiers of the value and benefits of dig-

ital printing. Ultimately, these efforts seek to build demand

for digital print services providers.

Creatives remain an important, but under-penetrated,

opportunity for print services providers. Ninety-two per-

cent of creatives specify, recommend, approve or buy print,

worth $26 billion per year in the United States. Further,

they influence not only buying decisions, but the designs

that apply digital printing advantages, such as variable

information. Yet, just 15 percent of print and prepress firms

call on creatives, according to industry monitor TrendWatch

Graphic Arts.

Some of the efforts may be having an effect. In the last two years, the

percentage of creative professionals who claim to have tried digital color

printing more than doubled, reaching 63 percent in 2005 from 25 percent

in 2003, according to a readership survey by Graphic Design: USA.

Illustrating the PointThe ICON4 Sketchbook is among the most recent of these programs.

It was developed as one of two “icebreakers,” to help ICON4 conference

organizers meet a goal of encouraging interaction among illustrators,

who are typically private by nature.

The program worked this way: Artists chose one of their illustrations

to represent them on their conference badges and on stamps for trading

with attendees. Each illustrator also submitted a color sketch for repro-

duction in a perfect-bound book, which had a personalized cover and

extra pages for collecting the stamps.

According to Craig Frazier, ICON4 board member, and project design-

er of the ICON4 Sketchbook, once the organizers settled on that concept,

they backed out a schedule. “We learned we were already out of time,”

he said. The submissions deadline left only 10 days — including a three-

day holiday weekend — to complete the design, then print and ship about

500 copies of the 329-page book to an audience that demanded the high-

est quality.

Personalized Color SketchbookProvokes the Creative’s Query:

‘How Did They Do That?’ Illustration Conference Project Is One of the Many Ways Xerox,

Adobe and Other Industry Leaders Help Print Providers Show Creatives the Value of Digital Printing

by Bob Wagner

Bob Wagner

The ICON4 Sketchbook presents more than 300 sketches,including this one by Craig Frazier.

February 2006 GRAPHIC IMPRESSIONS 5

Using digital printing, how-

ever, that turned out to be

plenty of time. “The schedule

was tight, but this is pretty much

standard business for us,” said Andrew

Cooney, director of business develop-

ment at ColorCentric Corporation,

Rochester, New York, which printed both

pieces. “Our normal turnaround is two to three

days.”

The stamps and ICON4 Sketchbook were pro-

duced using several Adobe Creative Suite 2 software

packages for design and XMPie software to facilitate incorporation of vari-

able information from design to print. ColorCentric received the book files

on a Monday and by Friday of the same week had completed two rounds

of proofs and the full print run on a Xerox iGen3® 110 Digital Production

Press with Xerox FreeFlow™ DocuSP front end.

Each ICON4 attendee received a book and sheet of 36 stamps during

registration. Additional stamps were printed on site using a Xerox Phaser

EX7750, meeting unexpectedly fierce demand. In all, 45,000 stamps

were printed. Trading of the iconoclastic stamps became part of ICON4’s

“buzz,” and the personalized sketchbooks, in particular, also were high-

ly coveted.

When curious illustrators investigated how the materials were pro-

duced, they learned that the project was only possible with digital color

presses. The turnaround was too fast for offset, the print run of 500

copies was too small to be cost-effective on offset, and most of the books

were personalized, a capability that is not available with offset. Yet on

digital presses, the project came in under budget.

Frazier summed it up this way: “This project is a shining example of

how today’s most demanding creative professionals are embracing high

quality, full-color digital printing to showcase their best work.”

Pointing the WayXerox has had a hand in producing a number of other high-profile

books on digital color presses, including awards books showcasing win-

ners in the annual John Caples International Awards, recognizing out-

standing direct marketing work, and the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan

Washington, D.C.

award program.

These projects,

along with

d i r e c t

market-

ing campaigns,

seminars for creatives,

advertising, promotional part-

nerships with industry leaders like Adobe

and Pantone, Inc. and participation in industry events help to keep digi-

tal color printing a top-of-mind design option for creatives.

Another way Xerox promotes digital printing is by developing resources

for digital print service providers to share with their creative customers

as a business entrée. One leading tool, produced in conjunction with the

renowned Parsons The New School for Design (formerly Parsons School

of Design) in New York, is a digital printing design primer, The Art &

Science of Digital Printing: The Parsons Guide to Getting it Right. Xerox

customers use it to help them prospect for agency and design services

accounts. As a winner of a Gold Ink Award for printing excellence, spon-

sored by the North American Publishing Company, it is a distinctive and

valuable calling card.

More Xerox resources for agencies and design services can be found

on www.xerox.com/creative, a site developed specifically for the cre-

ative community. Its resources include how-to articles, digital quick-

tips, case studies, an events calendar, solutions information and a link to

the global directory of Xerox Graphic Arts Premier Partners (leading

worldwide print service providers).

Digital printing is a powerful medium that is coming into its own, pro-

viding new ways to generate exceptional results — and steady buzz in the

creative community. Xerox is among the firms taking a leadership role in

helping print providers build their businesses by showing creatives “how

they do that.” ◆

Bob Wagner is vice president and general manager of the Creative

Services Segment of the Worldwide Graphic Communications Industry

Business at Xerox Corporation. He can be contacted at robert.wagn-

er@xerox.com.

The ICON4 Sketchbook was personal-ized with the illustrator’s name and apersonal stamp, which each illustratorcreated specifically for the conference.