Not every print shop would set out to become the first company in the world to get its Fuji Xerox iGen4 PSO colour certified. But Jagar Sprinting isn’t every print company. Firstly, it isn’t based in an industrial development of the greater metro area of one of our capital cities, but smack bang in downtown Sydney. Looking at its postcode – 2000 – you can quickly guess it’s not housed in your typical factory. But neither is it the kind of shopfront franchise outlet typically found in the CBD.
Through the big revolving doors of 60 Carrington St is a map of the complex, which lists Jagar Sprinting’s neighbours – solicitors, accountants and business consultants share the city tower. The closest thing to a fellow printer comes in the shape of the central Sydney office of Computershare. The whole building, from the glass frontage to the marble lobby and enclave of elevators befits one of the financial district’s best locations.
“We’ve always been in corporate-style offices,” says director Bruce Jacobs. When the company was established in 1999, that address was Bligh St, a few blocks from its current home but still in Sydney’s financial hub, a stone’s throw from Martin Place.
“We moved to accommodate the iGen3,” says Jacobs. Specifically, Jagar needed a site with a window at least 2.5m2, large enough to fit the 2m2 engine of Fuji Xerox’s flagship digital device. In 2005, it moved to the first floor mezzanine level of 60 Carrington St, and proudly fired up the CBD’s first iGen.
The digital press was shipped over on a Sunday. The street out the front was shut down (no small matter considering there’s a bus zone directly in front). Two dozen workers helped crane the iGen3 through the first floor window.
It was a serious undertaking, says Jacob, but there was no other way.
The offices were originally home to Jagar Document Integration, a company established by Jacobs and business partner Malcolm Gasper in 1999. (‘Jagar’ being a conjunction of their surnames). Gasper says they settled on the brand because “we thought a name that didn’t pigeonhole us as a printer would be a good idea”.
In fact, they didn’t necessarily set out to be classified as just a digital printer.
“When Malcolm and I started Jagar in ’99, it was not necessarily to be a printing company but to be a smart company that harnessed emerging software and equipment around variable data print. Along the way, we become a provider of high-end digital colour print for corporates and we elected to continue to market that side of the business.”
Gasper agrees: “When we first started, we wanted to do variable-data colour printing around direct marketing. We also got involved in outbound telemarketing and database management.”
Jacobs says the company has “always championed variable data print and to this day it forms part of our business”.
Since the dawn of digital, variable-data has been touted as toner and inkjet’s killer app. But it’s safe to say that reality hasn’t always matched up to the hyperbole. Did Jagar find that the market for VDP didn’t live up to expectation?
“Our experience in the early years was no, because the data was just a mess. But we are seeing a lot more focus on it these days. And customers are starting to talk about it. It’s a two-way conversation rather than a one-way conversation,” says Jacobs.
Their early interest in VDP was just one example of the directors trying to stay at the forefront of digital. There is also, of course, the aforementioned colour management world-first. But before getting to that, let’s touch on the’Sprinting’ part of the company name.
Sprinting was primarily an offset operation, based just over the road. Established in 1977, it was a neighbour to Jagar, as opposed to a direct competitor. “We had known the owner of the business for many years. He was ready to retire, so in May 2008, we took it over, We had totally different offerings, a different focus and different clientele. We were in high-end corporate and the Sprinting business tended to be SME,” says Jacobs.
Jagar Sprinting was born. “Both of us had a strong brand name and so rather than lose either or both of them we elected to keep them both,” adds Jacobs.
Following the buyout, the two businesses were initially run separately, with operations slowly migrating over to the Jagar side. The final piece in the puzzle was put in place in June this year, when Jagar secured the entire mezzanine floor of its building. It now had enough floor space to bring over Sprinting’s small-format sheetfed offset.
The consolidation came at around the same time as an upgrade to a Fuji Xerox iGen4, again one of the first in Sydney’s CBD. Once more the road was closed off so the digital press could be loaded in (this time they managed with a large forklift). They took to opportunity to bring in some of the bigger items from Sprinting, including a pair of two-colour litho presses.
This pair of litho machines is currently housed in the carpeted modern office block. No doubt they are in a select club of printers with offset litho in a building designed as an office space? Jacobs laughs and points at a heavy-duty extractor system fitted in through the kitchen – a necessary inclusion to allow this kind of office to house an industrial process.
Up to standard
The merger was complete. The new branding was in place behind the reception desk and on the business stationery. Not one but two iGens had now been swung in through the window. Surely it was time to rest? But no, another challenge was on the agenda – colour management standard ISO 12647-2.
“What inspired us to get it?” questions Jacobs. “We saw there was going to be a requirement in the future for colour management to the point where it might be an industry-recognised methodology. We also saw some of our friends and competitors take it on,” he says.
Gasper says the real driver was the shiny new engine. “We were looking for a way to leverage the new technology we got out of the iGen4. We were impressed with the accuracy and the colour, so we wanted to take the colour up to the absolute top level.”
They looked at the options for ISO 12647, including vendor-run programs, and decided that PSO was the “logical conclusion”. But how logical was it really to become the first in the world to take this path? Surely the company was setting itself up for some serious challenges.
Gasper, who drove the colour management program from the top, says it made sense if you consider Jagar Sprinting’s corporate customer base. “Brand management is very important for them.
“We prided ourselves on starting in colour, being experts in colour and producing high-quality colour so I guess it makes a statement that that’s what we stand for,” says Gasper. He adds that reducing reprints and keeping customers satisfied were two more big motivators.
The Jagar founders may be long-time colour aficionados, but the route to certification was still an uphill battle.
“It wasn’t easy,” says Gasper.
“It was damned hard,” Jacobs cuts in. “We had a lot of doubters.”
Gasper says: “Even the manufacturers of the equipment wouldn’t envisage going down the track we went down.”
That path started back in November 2009, when Jagar Sprinting enlisted CMYKit’s colour expert Jason Hall. He was recommended by GASAA, which is the exclusive auditing body for Swiss colour standards body UGRA. Jacobs says: “CMYKit had done a PSO elsewhere and because of Jason’s experience, we thought he was the right person to bring onboard.”
Hall had indeed only brought a small number of digital presses up to ISO 12647, including an HP Indigo at On Demand Printing in Melbourne and a wide-format HP device at Look Print in the Sydney suburb of Leichhardt. These few examples make Hall a veritable veteran in this new area of the colour standardisation field.
Gasper says: “The first thing we did was engage in discussion with Jason about what was involved in the process. He then scoped the project and gave us an indication of timeframe and cost and we made a determination to move forward. When we got it started, it was matter of running test files through the iGen4, including long run lengths over a period of time and measuring all those prints.
“Once he had done all those measurements, we got some indication where the strengths and weaknesses of the iGen4 might be. Jason worked on the RIP: how it deal with the files coming through, colour curves and so on so until we had set it to a standard that met the ISO,” he adds.
Tough task
Hall agrees that the process wasn’t a walk in the park. “The iGen was a new piece of kit for me. It was something I had not worked with before.” He tips his hat to Jagar’s level of expertise and the training they got from Fuji Xerox. “That helped us get to where we got to.
“We had some challenges with the iGen4. Any of these digital devices have their own premium device configuration, which takes time to refine to. There are a number of times you get frustrated, walk away, have a think then come back.
“You are refining the device set-ups; it’s to do with how you calibrate the machines. We would run through the different options to figure out the best way to maintain colour consistency,” says Hall.
He explains that getting the machine up to standard was a combination of obvious configuration options and trial and error. “Look at all the different settings that a workflow has. Each of those has an impact. Multiply it out. If there were 10 variables, there would be 100 possibilities. There could be 100 to a thousand combinations of variables you need to customise. Some of that comes down to expertise, some comes down to pure doggedness.”
There’s a whole host of things to consider, from hardware to paper to software. Hall says it helped that Jagar was running the standard Fuji Xerox Freeflow set-up with no third-party RIPs or other systems to get in the way.
“Before even going into the device, another thing we look at is the stocks that the company is using to make sure they can hit the standards. Do you have a stock that will hit the requirement of the standard? One of their two house stocks conformed, so we didn’t need to go and search for a new stock,” says Hall.
But getting the internal processes and systems in place is only half the battle. Rolling out this new approach to customers is also essential. Jagar now offers clients two options: certified and non-certified printing. If a customer wants the ISO 12647 stamp, it’s vital that they supply their files in the PDF-X/3 format.
“We can still run a job that’s not certified – we’re not going to knock work back. But if a client wants a certified job they need to send the file in PDF-X/3.”
He says that while the majority of Jagar’s clients now supply files as PDFs – not necessarily in the X/3 version – there are still a fair number that don’t.
“We deal with people in the corporate side who work with PowerPoint or Word. They will never get a certified job because their files are in RGB. We have distinguished between our two types of clients – the high end and the office side.”
Jagar is aiming to educate both groups, particularly the high end but increasingly the less colour savvy clients from the corporate world. “Getting them onto InDesign and creating PDFs has always been part of the education process even before PSO but now we do it to a consistent file type with PDF-X/3,” says Gasper.
“We have educated our clients over a long period of time to convert to a PDF workflow. We are now talking about the more quality-critical clients on the high-end design side,” he adds. He explains that the education is an individual thing, done on a one-to-one basis with clients, “rather than a broad brush”.
Every time a client switches to a print-by-numbers approach, it validates Jagar’s decision to go down the PSO route. Gasper says the next thing on the horizon will be the re-audit process, which needs to take place every two years. He’s not worried. “We measure that ourselves every week so it’s not something we’re concerned with.”
While both Gasper and Jacobs are positive about the impact PSO has had on their company, the true aim is to run a healthy business, not just print top quality. Becoming colour experts is just a bonus.
“I’m not a colour expert – my job is to run the company,” says Gasper. “But I need to understand because I do all the audits, go around the company and make sure that devices are properly calibrated and everyone is following the right the process.”
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