The new service, named Publish, uses a free Adobe InDesign plug-in from Blurb and includes templates for four cover formats, five paper types, and eight trim sizes - including a new 8.5"x11" size exclusive to Publish.
CGX added that Publish will also enable creative professionals to finish their projects up to 75% faster using Blurb's custom proofing tools and automated pre-flight checks.
"We’ve definitely seen from our existing customers that there’s a demand there and we really haven’t had a solution for them when it came to short-run bound publications, even though we had all the hardware and all the back end," CGX President James Hill told PrintWeek in an interview.
"What we were missing was the streamline workflow on the front end. We know that’s going to fill that gap for our existing customers and we think it will provide potential new customers with a great introduction to our technology and our binding process."
By allowing orders of a single unit on up, Publish will provide cost effective solutions for smaller volume projects that require high-end production values.
"We’re actually seeing a rise in our short-run customized business," added Hill. "When you think of the sales presentation side, the manual side, there are just a lot of opportunities to show we can do short-run cost effectively."
Publish is being rolled out nationally this week and Hill said: "There’s definitely a learning curve on the sales side on the features. But for customers, especially the creative professionals working on design, as soon as we show them the tools it makes a lot of sense to them and they can see the benefits that our front end workflow eliminates for them on the backend. So on the customer side that learning curve is going to be pretty easy work."
CGX announced the new feature at its annual Emerge conference — held this year in New Orleans — which gathers marketing leaders, creative experts, business executives as well as print provider providers and manufacturers to talk about the future of commercial print and overall communications.
Hill said the tone of this year’s Emerge has been very upbeat, adding: "The agencies on that side of business have been saying their customers over the last three months have been coming to them saying, ‘You know we haven’t done anything in three years and we’re losing market share, so let’s get out there.’ And print is definitely one of those components."
