An hour's flight east of Seattle, you find the city of Spokane. Friendly people, stunning nature, and then, of course, Sonderen Packaging. Sonderen Packaging is today led by Keva and Matt Sonderen, siblings with extensive experience and a strong belief in the company's and the market's future. We are there because Sonderen decided to acquire a new Manroland Evolution 700-series offset printer—and, of course, we had to see it, and learn about why they chose to work with manroland. Sonderen have worked with manroland for years and yet they, of course, compared with other suppliers before investing in the new machine - but service, quality, delivery - well - all the boxes ticked in favor or manroland - and today it produces at high speed, high quality, with short setup time - and the service they get is great. But check out the film yourself and enjoy :-)

Kern is one of the main players when it comes to inserting & mailing systems. The Hunkeler feeders will match the company color and can be had in Swiss red, or was it Ferrari red? Not sure if it has to reflect the speeds they obtain, but they are the only ones allowed to have a different color for the Hunkeler equipment that they integrate into their inserting lines. Good talk with Daniel Wenger about how Kern meets their customers' automation requirements.

At Printing United 2025 in Orlando, Morten B. Reitoft from INKISH visits the Standard Finishing Systems booth, where he meets Kent Larson from Bridgeport National Bindery. This company has evolved far beyond its traditional roots while staying true to the craft of bookmaking. Kent explains that Bridgeport began as a bindery but later expanded into printing, a move that strengthened its understanding of both disciplines. “We’re a bindery first — that’s in our DNA,” he says. “We moved backward into printing, which means our focus on quality binding has never changed. Consumers still want a well-made book.” He points out that the quality of digitally printed books has improved dramatically. “Years ago, digital print and hot-glue binding didn’t hold up,” he recalls. “Today, with the right engineering and partners like Horizon and Standard, the books look and feel just like traditionally produced ones — they last.” Kent emphasizes that time-to-market has become the key competitive factor. “That’s the antidote to warehousing,” he says. “If you can print and ship on demand, you eliminate inventory and speculation.” He also highlights how digital printing has revived the book market, once thought to be in decline. “The physical book is thriving again. Short runs, backlist reprints, and print-on-demand are driving a new model — print what you need, when you need it.” Drawing a parallel to streaming media, Kent compares today’s publishing landscape to the evolution of audio and video. “Just like Spotify or Netflix changed how we consume entertainment, digital printing lets publishers deliver books directly to readers. E-books didn’t replace print because people want something tangible — they want to hold it, gift it, and disconnect from screens.” He notes that in recent months there has even been a spike in Bible sales in the U.S., underscoring that printed books still carry cultural and emotional weight. “You can read a Bible online, but people want the real thing,” he says. At the show, Kent explains he’s mainly there to meet friends and see what’s next in finishing technology. “It’s a dynamic time in publishing,” he concludes. “The physical book isn’t going anywhere — people still want something they can touch and feel.”

At Printing United Expo in sunny Orlando, Wayne Beckett from INKISH sat down with Kenneth Hanulec from EFI to talk about how the company is approaching this year’s busy and energetic show. “We love Printing United,” Kenneth said with a smile. “It’s a great community of people. It’s been super busy—day one was packed, and we’re halfway through day two and still running full speed. We’re just excited to be here.” Wayne noted that the show seemed bigger and more vibrant than before, and Kenneth agreed. “It certainly feels like there’s more traffic,” he said. “We’ve seen people from Latin America, Canada, and a lot more from the West Coast than I expected. It’s really a broad mix of visitors.” EFI’s booth was one of the largest on the floor, showcasing an extensive range of machines. When asked how conversations with PSPs were going, Kenneth explained that the focus was mainly on applications. “EFI is centered on three verticals—sign and display, packaging, and industrial textile,” he said. “All of our printers are designed to do two key things: maximize productivity and efficiency while driving the lowest cost per square foot, and enable new applications. Whether it’s clear ink, multilayer printing, or working with new substrates, it’s all about giving PSPs ways to boost profitability.” Wayne remarked on the impressive range of substrates EFI printers can handle, from textiles to rigid materials. Kenneth laughed. “I tell people—and it makes engineers nervous—that we can print on almost anything. As long as it’s about 2 inches thick or less and the process is contactless, we can spray ink onto it and make a beautiful image. Whether it’s paper, film, metal, glass, wood, or plastic, inkjet technology is incredibly versatile.” Asked if EFI has a “sweet spot” among its many printers, Kenneth replied, “I love all the children. We have over 40 printers available for commercial use across our three verticals. Here we’re showing hybrid and roll-to-roll technologies, and our partners have brought dedicated flatbed and hybrid systems as well. The strength of our portfolio is its breadth—whatever a customer’s capacity or productivity needs are, we’ve got a solution that fits.” Wayne pointed out that EFI continues to partner with Fiery for front-end solutions. “Yes,” Kenneth said. “We’ve worked with Fiery for decades. Even though we’re now separate companies, Fiery still accounts for 99% of our digital front-end sales. They’re great partners, and we really value their technology.” Turning to automation, Kenneth explained how EFI approaches it from both software and hardware perspectives. “When we talk about automation, it’s really twofold,” he said. “There’s software-based automation, which drives workflow efficiency, and then there’s hardware automation. Take our packaging solution, Nozomi—it can produce a thousand boards an hour, so you need automation to keep up with that. We’ve also launched EFI Insight, a cloud-based analytics tool that converts real-time data from the Nozomi printer into business intelligence. It helps customers improve efficiency, increase profitability, and even manage preventive maintenance. It’s still early days, but the potential is huge.” Wayne asked whether robotics was also part of EFI’s roadmap. “Yes, we’re working on various automation programs,” Kenneth confirmed. “There’s nothing commercially available yet, but it’s an area we’re actively developing.” As their conversation wrapped up, Wayne commented on how impressive the EFI portfolio looked. Kenneth nodded. “We have an excellent direct and indirect sales team, and we focus on solving real problems for our customers,” he said. “With such a wide portfolio, I’m confident we can help anyone who comes to us.” Wayne smiled. “Kenneth, it’s been great talking to you. There’s still a day and a half left—by the time you leave, I’m sure all the machines will be sold.” Kenneth laughed. “That’s always the plan.”

When Japanese publishers wanted to expand their approach to logistics and publication management, they began working with the Rotomail team and their solution, Bronte Global Alliance. In this exclusive Inkish interview, Kenichi Igarashi speaks publicly for the first time.

Ken Garner is the VP Development & Industry Relations for the American organization, APTech, short for Association for PRINT Technologies. APTech used to be the organizer of GraphExpo and Print shows in Chicago but chose in 2019 to team up with Tarsus to continue the show under the name Brand Print Americas. In this, Over the Skype session, we get the chance to hear more about the work of APTech. We also hear about the first larger virtual conference that due to the COVID-19 was moved from being a physical conference to a virtual one - and many more exciting subjects. As with all our ‘Over the Skype’ interviews, quality is limited to bandwidth, web-cams, and ability to literally LIVE mix the conversations. However, it works, and with Over the Skype, we will bring you more than 20 exciting people, and angles on the industry as it is right now. Enjoy!

Soon after the pandemic got its grip on the world, the British Web-to-Print company Vpress started The Crown Pub. Two times a week, the pub opened its doors for users to discuss meaningful subjects. Rarely the topics were about anything relating to Vpress and their products. Regardless Kelvin Bell and his team continued the pub, and in this session, we talk to Kelvin Bell, whether this is just REALLY smart marketing, will this format continue forever, and what has the take-aways been for Vpress.

Keith Michael is the founder and owner of Lebone Litho in Johannesburg, and many sides to this story are surprising. First and foremost, what should one expect when driving through a city that has slums and the most beautiful buildings? We arrive at a street where it seems Lebone has taken over most of it. The facades are renovated, and when we arrive at the reception, you realize before even entering the company that Lebone is beyond most printing companies. In the board room, we meet with Keith Michael - a fantastic personality whose background is in plastics, and you soon realize a person who has an eye for detail. No dust and no mess. Wherever we go in the large facility, his eyes are everywhere, and his people know it. Lebone has about 600 employees and though we "only" visit Lebone Litho, the next door buildings have large format, multi-media, publishing, and across the street a super optimized production of exam papers, including scanning facilities to afterwards scan the submitted papers and deliver an electronic output - and I can go on - but we are at Lebone covering Fujifilm Jetpress S750 and some of Fujifilms highly acclaimed print bars, mounted on various printing and finishing machines. Keith Michaels is obviously proud of what he has achieved for good reasons, and when listening to his personal story, everything becomes even more impressive, as he lived in a township before the end of apartheid. Besides the continued growth of Lebone, Keith Michael is also giving back to his community, having donated to the construction of five churches. We are impressed.

Paul is a friend, and if you are not connected with him, you should. Paul Gardner owns the second-largest print group on LinkedIn, with more than 120,000 members and a quite active community. He is the Director of Operations with AlphaGraphics, Sandy, in Utah daily. Whenever we are in Salt Lake City, we get a chance to meet with Paul, have some great food, and talk about the industry - and, of course, we had to interview one of the people who connects the most people in this industry. Please subscribe to Digital Printing and connect with Paul Gardner. Before doing so, please watch the film :-) LinkedIn Group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/100048/

Wayne Beckett talks to Katharina Prins from Opinion Printing on the first day of OPS 2025. Katharina talks about their new AI offering as-well as a new adhesive material they have recently launched.

At any open house, the presenter/moderator makes the day flow. With the BHS Open House, the woman that 'glued' the event together was Katharina Aguilar, a professional presenter and moderator. We got the opportunity to ask her how much she had to prepare and understand the customer, and we believe you'll find this interview great. Enjoy!

Kasper is the second printing company in the world, being cradle-to-cradle compliant. In this session we hear about the journey, why it's important, and how it can be good business! LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kasper-larsen-b230252/

Looking back at the many interviews we have done up to the upcoming #HID25, it's amazing how many software companies you will see at this year's Hunkeler Innovationdays. Impressed from Germany is both a distributor for companies such as Enfocus and Ultimate Tech also a developer of a platform called IWS (Impressed Workflow Server) that enables various sources like MIS/ERP/W2P and more to connect to IWS that then triggers various workflows to various production setup. Seems very smart, but you can check out for yourself in Lucerne :-)

At the Horizon Finishing First event, one of the Horizon partners was the German workflow software specialist Impressed. Impressed has for 30 years delivered workflow solutions from Ultimate TechnoGraphics, Enfocus, and software for color management - pretty much all the needed software on the pre-press side. At the Finishing First event, Karsten Schwarze demonstrated the Impressed Server platform, which converts and streamlines the XML data. The software is super interesting for companies with multiple input data sources, but see the presentation and learn!

Karsten Kejlhof talks about Lundberg Tech supplying a waste management system to a printing and converting line demonstrated at Labelexpo Americas 2024 by Martin Automatic, ETI Converting, and Lemu Group. The Danish company's technology allows converters to reduce downtime by diverting matrix waste from the press and compacting it for more efficient disposal. LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karstenkejlhof/

At the LabelExpo-Americas show, we got the chance to talk to CEO Kevin Karstedt from Karstedt & Partners, who today, Tuesday, September 20th, announced the company's acquisition by Keypoint Intelligence. Kevin Karstedt is well-known for the company's 20+ years of experience in packaging, and with his experience, he and his partner Jeff will be leading the packaging division at KPI. Super cool to meet Kevin Karstedt, and I am sure you will like the interview.

Despite being less than a year old, You may have heard a lot about CoCoCo. CoCoCo has, however, made an impact by covering a need in the market, connecting various solutions seamlessly and without the need for programmers. Carl Ciz is one of the founders and obviously very passionate about the project - and you should be too :-)

Morten from Inkish speaks with Karin at manroland Goss during LabelExpo in Barcelona. With 40 years in print and packaging and only weeks into her new role, Karin traces the shift from long-run, sheetfed commercial work toward web, automation, and especially flexible packaging, now accelerated by brand demands and differing regional regulations. She walks through the configurable VARIOMAN concept on display: a non-stop unwind with flying splice, infeed and web cleaning, then as many offset units as a job requires, plus hybrid options such as an inline flexo station and gravure units for varnish, high-laydown whites, and barrier layers. A turn bar enables two-sided work. Curing is centered on electron-beam for food-safe, low-migration results, complemented by hot-air dryers and, where appropriate, UV or LED-UV. The sleeve-based press covers a wide repeat range up to about 43 inches, runs very thin and stretchable films for sleeves and flexible packaging, and can also handle folding carton; output can be roll-to-roll or roll-to-sheet. Beyond packaging, the platform is being used for pharmaceutical leaflets on ultra-light papers down to roughly 27 gsm. Karin emphasizes that specifying one of these lines is a consultative process—scoping current and future needs, iterating configurations, and producing test prints—because the same modular press can be tailored to very different applications.

Pat McGrew speaks with Karen Geeves and Roy Bohnen on the first day of Printing United to hear their impressions of the show. They say the event is always a place to discover new technologies, new vendors, and new manufacturers. Still, it is equally valuable for reconnecting with friends and familiar colleagues in what feels like a small, close-knit industry. They have not yet encountered anything that truly astonishes them, but they still plan to explore further once their scheduled meetings are over. They also mention collaborating with twelve partners on the Greyhorn series, producing twelve limited-edition printed images each day, which has been an enjoyable highlight of their time in Orlando.

The KAMA ProCut76 is an amazing machine, and in the interview soon to be published on INKISH, the founder of Studio on Fire, Ben Levitz, explains how and why the KAMA ProCut76 is a game changer for the company - but in this film, we take the operators perspective. How easy is the ProCut to use, and what makes it stand out from similar machines in the market. Eric Ryan operates the ProCut76 and explains to Editor Morten B. Reitoft how it's used - and I am sure you will understand well - so sit back and enjoy!

Almost exactly a year ago we met ION Print and Kairit Parker for the first time. It was literally days before version 1 of ION Prints print broker platform was released. The software is made to help print brokers utilize printers, and instead of asking printers for quotes, ION Print automatically calculate the prices based on a large number of parameters. ION Print is out of Estonia, and for those who don't know, Estonia is one of the most developed IT-nations in the world. Now a year later, ION Print has been launched, and customers are using the platform daily. Listen and learn! As with all our 'Over the Skype' interviews, quality is limited to bandwidth, web-cams, and ability to literally LIVE mix the conversations. However, it works, and with Over the Skype, we will bring you more than 20 exciting people, and angles on the industry as it is right now. Enjoy!

Italian with Italian, English, German, and Spanish subtitles. This time, your hardworking INKISH team visits Cartotecnica in Turin, Italy. We are visiting a mid-sized family-owned company that, like many others, started in commercial printing and is transitioning towards packaging. As always, the hospitality in Italy is exceptional, and we are introduced to Lorenzo Berruto, the next generation of Berrutos running Cartotecnica. The company operates two Koenig & Bauer presses. It has also invested in an iPress 106 die-cutting machine, as well as two folding/gluers, also from Koenig & Bauer, known as Omega. But the story is, of course, also about how Lorenzo Berruto got involved in the company and his view on the future - he is optimistic - so dig in and enjoy.

In this conversation with Jutta Hendrikx and Hayco van Gaal from Canon Europe, we get a chance to talk about the new iX-series sheetfed inkjet printers from the global print-giant. We also get the very first view of the machine in action, filmed by Hayco van Gaal from their experience centre - so that's all very cool. As with all our 'Over the Skype' interviews, quality is limited to bandwidth, web-cams, and ability to literally LIVE mix the conversations. However, it works, and with Over the Skype, we will bring you more than 20 exciting people, and angles on the industry as it is right now. Enjoy!

In this 'Over the Skype' session Chief Co-creation Juriaan van Beelen of the online printing player - Print.com - talks with Jacques Michiels from INKISH Benelux about their business strategy, their focus on the professional market of Printers and print shops. Print.com offers online printing services in a "closed platform" and with App Connectivity. We talk about how Print.com see their own future and that of their customers, the Printers and Print providers in the BENELUX and the surrounding countries. All very interesting considerations and evolutions! We keep you Up to date! --- In deze 'Over the Skype' sessie spreekt Chief Co-creatie Juriaan van Beelen van de onlinedrukwerkspeler - Print.com met Jacques Michiels van INKISH Benelux over hun bedrijfsstrategie en hun focus op de professionele markt van drukkerijen en printshops. Print.com biedt online drukwerkservices in een "gesloten platform" en met App Connectivity. We praten samen over hoe zij hun eigen toekomst zien en die van hun klanten, zijnde de drukkerijen en Print providers in de BENELUX en haar omringende landen. Allemaal interessante overwegingen en evoluties! Hou dus samen met ons de vinger aan de pols!