CEO Jason Desai meets with Editor Morten B. Reitoft to explain how strong values drive Mark Andy into a Digitally Transformed reality. An extremely exciting conversation where you get closer to who Jason Desai is. We get an insight into how Mark Andy sees a future with flexo, digital, and hybrids - and also how Mark Andy aims to be a full-service supplier with technology, service, and consumables as part of the future offerings!

Jenny Holmén is one of the people that we at INKISH.TV have followed in the past years - and we plan to continue doing so. She is CEO of the Swedish bindery Aros Bokbinderi and one of the reasons this story is interesting is that Jenny Holmén, Carl Arnesson and Bo Roger Sandberg in 2015 decided to invest in a medium sized bindery with NO advanced knowledge about the printing industry. We have decided to follow Jenny Holmén and her team on their path to success. The path is based on a modern and very active management that leads the way investing time and money. See this film and enjoy future films as well. See the first film here: http://inkish.tv/Episode.aspx?vid=OfeBgYUkRLg

In a small company in the suburbs of TelAviv in Israel, you'll find a company called MibaStar. For years, the company has been researching and developing bread bags and food packaging materials that look and feel like plastic - but it's not. MibaStar, today part of the global packaging group PolyStar, has invented a product that has similar properties to the know mixed paper/plastic products used daily worldwide, but without the use of plastics. The journey has been quite interesting and with quite some a-ha experiences. Today CEO Itzhak Yoffe and his team can deliver finished products for bread, fish, and other products, and raw material for other printers to use. The story is amazing and shows how innovation and craftsmanship, hand in hand, can develop solutions to almost every problem defined! This is a very important step in the right direction - enjoy! LinkedIn Profile

As a result of the pandemic, shopping went online, handshakes become waves, and people stayed home such that trips to the mailbox became the most exciting part of the day. Companies were forced to rethink how to stay connected to their customers. Explore how digital print offers the flexibility to adapt & thrive in an ever-changing world. ​

Royalpack is a Polish family-owned packaging company with over 15 years of history and nearly three decades of experience in the industry. Founded by a father, mother, and son team, the company combines strong operational know-how with a sharp focus on market development and customer needs. In this Perspective, they share how Royalpack grew from its early beginnings after studies in Berlin, building on experience in packaging since the 1990s. With financial management led by the mother, operations and strategy by the father, and sales and development driven by the son, Royalpack has expanded beyond Poland to serve customers across Europe. A major part of Royalpack’s success has been its partnership with Koenig & Bauer. The company relies on Koenig & Bauer technology to ensure high-quality, efficient, and innovative packaging production. This collaboration has helped Royalpack strengthen its competitive edge, meet customer demands, and continue growing in international markets. The story highlights Royalpack’s family values, commitment to innovation, and their vision for growth in the competitive packaging market.

This was a project I did with Twintag. That uses unique identifiers like QR codes to link printed products or physical products to live and digital experiences. When everything locked down I got nervous. I was convinced that I needed to be live to be any good. The focus is now more on the quality of content. People are really done with sitting in front of a zoom call. I think a lot of companies were basically not ready for this. A lot of companies had to play catch up. If good content and content creation is not in your DNA as an organization, it's really difficult to just start doing it. So one morning I walked out and I see a little Google car go by. I wrote a SMS to my mother going: Hey Mom, I am famous. I'm on Google Street View. I took like a little audio recorder where I could record ideas. I wasn't really lonely. It got lonely in other moments. I think we have gotten insanely lucky. Mortality rate is not very high. This was a good warning. And we should draw some lessons. But also: how do we communicate about this? Just as I come up a hill. And typically this is where I stopped playing the audio book. And I start recording ideas. The risk is, and I noticed this by myself, is that you start consuming so much media that you no longer process it. I read a lot of books when I was traveling. Even if you don't remember anything about the books you've read, they have changed you. Here we go. This is the one. It's called 'Cognitive Psychology And Its Implications'. This is the one. I'm in my comfort zone. It's unplanned. A lot of the best ideas just come from freewheeling. One of my customers actually forced me to do it. I did some of my best work without ever meeting the customers. There was a bunch of people, lots of excitement. We want to do this live. Because the energy level we get from you online. If that is just a part of what we're getting, we should do this live. I miss travel. I like meeting people in different places. Travel makes you focus on the essential. You take your best shoes, you take your most comfortable sweater. You take your favorite and best equipment. I've grown to do the same thing now. Not just when I travel, but when I leave the house. https://www.linkedin.com/in/pietsaegeman/

As always Piet Saegeman from CHILI publish gave an excellent presentation. In this 'Learn with us' session, he talks about Smart Templates, the subscription solution recently introduced, and as usual a great insight into what CHILI Publisher can offer its users.

Interview in Dutch - subtitles in English. VIGC- én INKISH vrienden sinds jaar en dag zijn de mensen van Enfocus. We vragen aan Piet de Pauw wat de nieuwste trends en mogelijkheden zijn die we moeten onthouden na een bezoek aan de grote en gemeenschappelijke beursstand samen met Esko,Pantone en X-Rite. Als vooraanstaand softwarebedrijf zijn ze goed geplaatst om de actuele stand van zaken te schetsen ivm performant werken in the Cloud en meer. -- EN -- The people of Enfocus have been VIGC and INKISH friends for many years. We ask Piet de Pauw what the latest trends and possibilities are that we should remember after a visit to the large and shared exhibition stand together with Esko, Pantone and X-Rite. As a leading software company, they are well placed to outline the current state of affairs regarding high-performance working in the Cloud and much more.

Web-to-Print, workflow/automation, robots? Well, these three gentlemen have answers to how the future of print can look - enjoy! LinkedIn Profiles: Piet de Pauw · Enfocus Marc Raad · Significans Chris Minn · Infigo

In this film, Piet De Pauw from Enfocus shares a view into the 'maybe' future in the ESKO/Enfocus future lab. Enjoy!

On the final afternoon of Printing United Expo in Orlando, Wayne Beckett from INKISH stopped by the Enfocus booth to speak with Piet de Pauw from Enfocus. With only a few hours left before the show closed, Piet was still full of energy. “It’s been a good show as always,” he said. “Honestly, this is my favorite show of the year. The organization is fantastic, and we partner with many other vendors here. We’ve got six partnerships on display this time, alongside many others at the show. It’s been an amazing run.” Wayne noted that collaboration seemed to be a big part of Enfocus’s approach. “Absolutely,” Piet replied. “That’s the heart of what we do. For example, we’re working with Kongsberg here at the show, demonstrating how our solutions tie together. We’re showing two things in particular—our Mini MIS, which we launched at last year’s Printing United in Atlanta, and this year we’ve added a layer of magic to it. Instead of just uploading a picture and removing the background with AI, we now turn it into a magic version of yourself. We’ve even designed a playable card game where your picture becomes one of the cards you can take home.” After a laugh about the “magic” theme, Wayne asked for an overview of what Enfocus software actually does. “Switch is built to be open at its core,” Piet explained. “I like to joke that Switch doesn’t do anything—of course, it does a lot—but what it really does is connect best-in-class systems. A modern printer has to invest in a wide range of software: imposition, MIS, web-to-print, prepress, finishing automation, and more. That creates a complex tech stack. Printers don’t necessarily want to spend time figuring out how to make all those systems talk to each other—they just want things to work. That’s where Switch comes in. It ties everything together, seamlessly. The best Switch installations are the ones where users forget it’s even there—it just runs quietly in the background doing all the work.” Wayne asked how that applied specifically to the partnership with Kongsberg. Piet smiled and grabbed a sample. “Let me show you,” he said. “Imagine you take a full-body picture at a family gathering and you want to turn it into a life-size cutout. Normally, that’s a long process—you’d use Photoshop to edit the photo, clean the lighting, cut out the background, and then generate a cut path, which takes time. In Switch, it takes 30 seconds.” He explained how the workflow operates: “You upload the image, and Switch sends it to an AI tool that removes the background. It’s then automatically enhanced by Viesus software, which adjusts lighting and image quality. After that, the file goes into PitStop, which generates a smooth, accurate cut path—because if there are thousands of points, the cutting table either crashes or takes forever. We smooth those lines, add the base, and send it to our nesting software, Griffin, where we nest the file on a 48x96 sheet. The whole thing—photo cleanup, enhancement, layout, nesting, and cut prep—happens automatically. At this show, the printed sheets go to the Digitech booth for printing, and then to Kongsberg for cutting. From photo to finished, cut-ready file—30 seconds flat.” Wayne laughed. “That’s incredible.” Piet nodded. “It is. That’s the power of automation when all the systems work together. It saves time, eliminates repetitive manual work, and lets people focus on creativity rather than file prep. That’s the magic behind Switch.” Wayne smiled. “Well, Piet, as always, it’s great to see you. I think next year you’ll have to make the theme a bit more obvious.” Piet laughed. “We’ll work on that for next year. Always a pleasure, Wayne.”

Think of this for a second - how many photos are taken every day with all the SmartPhones on the market? Well, we looked it up, and the estimate is more than 3 billion photos every day, and with this vast amount of photos, obviously, there are opportunities. Taopix is one of the leading suppliers of software for photo products, however, as Michael Carey explains, we deliver the software, and customers utilize the software in thousands of ways - and as he says, still an amazing business potential. Taopix is ready to support customers and even offer business services so they can deliver turnkey solutions. With the increased number of high-quality digital printers, the opportunity to turn precious moments into mugs, t-shirts, books, etc., has only begun. Reach out to Michael and Taopix for more information!

When you contact Infinity Foils and Phillip Guillaume, you get stamping forms made of bronze or brass or hot or cold foils for analog and digital equipment. We got a chance to talk to Guillaume at the BOBST Open House in Santa Fe Springs, and as always, it's great to talk to people who know the market and products and help customers with opportunities.

Mark's Quest takes him to Hall 7, where he meets with Phillip Gaskin from XMPie. Listen to the interview that, among other things, extends personalization to add a level of relevance and engagement - how far can XMPie bring you :-)

We, of course, start our interview with Osman and why he is attending the Kohlhammer event. Ricoh is one of more suppliers of digital printing equipment, but he is also very much aware that Kohlhammer may be a significant potential customer for Ricoh. It was super interesting talking to Philipp Osman, which also, off-camera was interesting, but that you, of course, can’t know :-) Language: German Subtitled: English

Sixth generation and with a lot of confident for the future. We met with Philipp Jänecke at the IST UV-Days - dig in and learn :-)

Printed electronics is a fascinating part of the printing industry and Phillip Holzl explains how Elantas can use their products to help PSP's move into this exciting sector using their vast range of products.

When you see printed electronics, it's almost unbelievable, and yet the technology has been around for 30 years. At the IST UV-Days, Philipp Hölzl from Elantas also explains the advantages, shows examples, and gives us an insight into how their ink helps their customers. Printed batteries, solar panels, sensors, and even OLED screens are just some of the opportunities the technology offers. With the conductive inks from Elantas, traditional screen printers can print products that are almost out of this world. This is certainly worth checking out, as this is something many have heard and most likely fewer seen - unbelievably cool!

For the mid-market, the Jeti Bronco offers a medium price point for a hybrid inkjet printer. Philip Van der Auwera, Agfa's product manager for sign and display, tells us the device runs at speeds exceeding 2,400 square feet per hour.

Phil Gaskin gets into the key features of the XMPie software. They provide powerful, variable data printing and web-to-print software that brings together customer databases and creative content. Working on top of Adobe creative suite, they help printers and businesses leverage their customer data and create personalized omnichannel experiences across print and digital channels.

Wayne from Inkish caught up with Phil McMullin from Epson at The Print Show in Birmingham, where the aisles were lively and the atmosphere upbeat. Fresh from Labelexpo Europe in Barcelona, where Epson drew strong crowds around its new digital label press, Phil arrived at the NEC with a very different showcase — one designed to highlight just how broad Epson’s offering to the UK print market has become. He began by noting that Epson’s reputation was originally built on proofing and photographic excellence, with the company long recognized for color consistency and image quality. Today, that same expertise underpins a much wider portfolio spanning signage, graphics, customization, and textile applications. On the stand this year were multiple roll-to-roll printers using eco-solvent, resin, and aqueous inks for everything from posters to POS; T-Series devices for high-quality aqueous output; and a growing family of UV flatbeds — including the compact V1000 and the larger B7000 — offering white ink, spot varnish, and layered 3D effects ideal for promotional, industrial, and décor markets. Epson also showcased its expanding label printing range, reflecting both print-for-pay and on-demand manufacturing opportunities. In addition, the company placed strong emphasis on the booming textile sector, running live demos of its direct-to-film (DTF) and direct-to-garment (DTG) solutions alongside roll-to-roll fabric printers for decor, soft signage, wallpaper, and upholstery. All of it, Phil emphasized, is built on Epson’s own printheads, inks, and chassis — ensuring total control over quality and reliability. Asked about Epson’s unique position as both a printhead supplier and a printer manufacturer, Phil clarified that the company carefully manages potential conflicts by supplying earlier-generation printheads to OEM partners while reserving the latest heads and firmware for Epson-branded systems. The result is an ecosystem where innovation at the core — in printhead design, firmware, and color science — drives every device under the Epson banner. Phil also discussed Epson’s acquisition of Fiery, calling it a natural fit that extends Epson’s reach into the cut-sheet production segment. The move, he said, complements rather than competes with Fiery’s existing OEM relationships and underlines Epson’s long-term strategic commitment to professional print. On The Print Show itself, Phil praised organizer Chris Davies for building what he described as the strongest UK floorplan since IPEX, noting the importance of bringing all major OEMs back under one roof. He welcomed the introduction of the Sign Show alongside the print event, seeing synergy between the two audiences, and stressed the value of giving UK PSPs a “home show” to engage directly with technology suppliers. Looking ahead, Phil hinted at a busy calendar of smaller focused events and customer open days at Epson’s new Lutterworth facility, a full-scale industrial demo center purpose-built to host large equipment — a step up from the company’s previous Hemel Hempstead premises. In closing, he reflected on the importance of supporting local exhibitions, saying the more big names there are, the more reason there is for people to come out, explore the technology, and see the value firsthand. As the first day wound down, Epson’s stand was bustling — a testament to the company’s growing footprint across every corner of the print market, from labels and signage to textiles and industrial décor.

Wayne Beckett talked to Phil Gaskin from Xmpie at the Hunkeler Innovations days about their cross-media, variable data one-to-one marketing software and how they offer solutions to help businesses create and manage highly effective direct marketing and cross-media campaigns.

Wayne from INKISH caught up with Phil Gaskin from XMPie at The Print Show in Birmingham, where the aisles were buzzing with activity on the opening day. Phil and Wayne have crossed paths at many international events — from Hunkeler Innovationdays to FINAT’s European Label Forum — but here in Birmingham, the focus was firmly on the UK market, one that XMPie has supported since The Print Show first began. Phil explained that XMPie has exhibited at every edition of the event, viewing it as an essential opportunity to meet UK print service providers face-to-face and demonstrate how software innovation continues to shape the industry. This year, XMPie showcased a live integration with Fujifilm, connecting its StoreFlow Cloud web-to-print platform directly into Fujifilm’s XMF workflow and Revoria press technology. Visitors could walk onto the stand, design a personalized greeting card or children’s book using their phone, add a photo, preview it in real time, and send the finished job straight to Fujifilm’s stand — where it was instantly imposed, color-managed, and printed on demand. Behind the scenes, the workflow demonstrated how automation, personalization, and creativity now work hand in hand. Templates were built in Adobe InDesign, giving full control over layout, metallic and fluorescent color effects, and high-end design features. Once approved, the order dropped automatically into XMF, which handled imposition, rotation, and routing to the appropriate device. Phil emphasized that XMPie’s mission has expanded far beyond traditional variable data printing. The company now sees integration and automation as central pillars of value, with deep partnerships such as the one with Enfocus, opening up new possibilities across workflows and connected ecosystems. XMPie currently supports around 400 UK customers and approximately 7,500 worldwide, spanning more than 100 countries. The company’s cloud-based StoreFlow platform reflects a broader shift toward software-as-a-service models, helping PSPs simplify operations, expand offerings, and enter new markets like DTG and on-demand publishing. Though Phil won’t be joining the team at PRINTING United in Orlando — the American sales force will handle that side of the pond — he remains focused on serving the UK and European markets, where XMPie continues to play a leading role in advancing personalized, automated print. As Wayne wrapped up, both agreed that day one at The Print Show had already delivered strong traffic and meaningful conversations — proof that UK print remains vibrant, curious, and eager to explore how software and smart integration are reshaping its future.

XMPie is one of the world's leading tools for variable data, and you can meet Phil Gaskin and his team at #HID25 in Lucerne. XMPie keeps developing, and today it has tools for workflow/automation and AI tools for image handling - so if you are in the digital space, you must visit XMPie at #HID25 - enjoy!