Digital has undergone a renaissance in the past few years, thanks to growing demand for shorter-runs and a buoyant on-demand market. Add to that the requirement for personalised marketing materials, plus increasing interest in web-to-print and it's no surprise that companies are still investing in digital, even though the recession has curtailed most other forms of major capital expenditure.

As if to illustrate the point, in the past few months alone Kent-based Marsten Press, Leeds firm Jade Press and MWL Digital in Pontypool have all bought digital kit.

What has given the market confidence to invest is the improvement in quality that now permits digital presses to faithfully reproduce Pantone colours. 

"Gone are the days of just printing CMYK and thinking that'll be good enough because it's digital," says Chris Matthews, managing director at Punch Graphix UK.

As a result manufacturers are expanding their machines' colour gamut so that they are able to hit specific colours. On top of that, digital has also become more flexible in terms of substrates and formats. Matthews points out that presses are able to handle six-page gatefolds - effectively three A4 sheets in a row. What makes this kind of document unique is that it was previously difficult to produce using digital technology.

Mark Stephenson, sales manager for digital solutions at Fujifilm, adds: "Many bespoke, market-specific products will continue to be developed, but higher quality, larger format and high-speed offerings will change print as we know it."
Speed is still high on a clients' wish-lists and inkjet is likely to push the boundaries further. "Inkjet is moving digital beyond the previous limitations, which were generally around 50-60 SRA3 sheets per minute," says Stephenson.

Label bonus
Since it is well suited to shorter runs and is able to incorporate personalisation features, digital has also attracted new customers in the labels market. "Digital can produce variable-data label printing," says Matthews. "We can add a serial number or barcode which identifies each individual label."

He adds that buyers should "research their customer base to find the right product to fulfil their requirements." Also make sure the digital press has a solid front end; this could be crucial for anyone looking to win web-to-print work.

WHAT'S NEW IN: Colour digital  & DI presses

• MWL Print Group bought an HP Indigo 3050, with SmartStream Designer software, from The Digital People, to replace an existing Indigo
• Digitally printed, personalised mailings produced better response rates than their litho counterparts in a test conducted by mail order clothing specialist Boden. The firm partnered with Howard Hunt to produce mailings targeted at lapsed customers
• Leeds-based Jade Press invested in its first digital press, an HP Indigo 3500. The Digital People supplied the machine to provide supplementary capacity for the firm's campaigns
• Océ expanded the colour capabilities of its ColorStream portfolio of web-fed production printers by adding a fifth colour station. The extra unit, which was launched at the Hunkeler Innovation Days in February, allows the machine to print in CMYK with an extra ‘CustomTone' spot colour
• Didcot-based DigiPress invested in a 34DI digital offset press from Presstek. The company says it has enjoyed a 20% increase in four-colour printing since installation