SAN FRANCISO, CA, 9/12/02 - The Seybold Conference and Exhibition, or more particularly "SeyboldSF Design/Build/Communicate 2002" was better than last year (which was two weeks after 9/11) but still smaller than in the past. Whereas in 1999 and 2000, the show took all the exhibit space in both the large North Hall and the companion but smaller South Hall, the show itself this year took something less than all of the North Hall. Attendance figures are still to be finalized, but all exhibitors queried said that attendance was lower than hoped but just about what was expected.
This report addresses the show from two perspectives, one the technology at Seybold SF, and the other regarding the digital fine art that was present on display.
Technology at Seybold
As expected, the majority of content at Seybold revolved around electronic publishing and all its various corners, from PDF and PDF/X, to Content Management, to XML plug-in manufacturers. There was, however, a fairly good amount of wide format printing technology on exhibit. Printer manufacturers there and showing printers include Hewlett-Packard, Epson, Roland (showing nothing but their wide format printers); color management (RIP) people included Best Color, Gretag-MacBeth, Monaco, and Chromaticity (actually consultants).
Hewlett-Packard was showing their new 5500 line of inkjets with Best RIP's, with several specific applications (including of course, color proofing). HP's DesignJets appeared throughout the show to have more traffic (people) than any other area of the HP exhibit space.
Epson was showing all of the their wide format inkjets (as well as smaller ones), but their main emphasis was the new 10600, just being introduced this fall. It is basically the 10000 printer introduced last year, but with one difference: the new 10600 will interchangeably support the three main ink sets that Epson uses, its traditional dye-based inkjet inks with wide gamut, its archival ink sets (somewhat smaller color gamut), and Epson's new pigmented UltraChrome inks.
Roland introduced its new PRO II line of inkjet printers and printer/cutters, although showing only the printers in San Francisco. The emphasis for the printers is their "blazing speed," designed for the signs, exhibits and P-O-P displays, using variable droplet technology and resolutions up to 1440x1440 dpi. The PRO II printers are available in the SolJet, CammJet, and Hi-Fi Jet lines. The printers are or will be available in 74- and 54-inch widths, and a 54-inch printer/cutter.
Tiara printers were exhibited in the Lyson Ink booth (a 30x30 island. (Tiara is not part of Lyson per se, but it appears as if Lyson has a stake in Tiara.) Tiara has two models, both solvent-based inkjets, one manufactured in the US, one in Europe ‹ might be both in US, not 100% sure.
Canon also exhibited a 24-inch inkjet, a desktop model, aimed at the corporate and color proofing market. I asked, and they are specifically not targeting the "print for pay" market with this machine.
Best Color was exhibiting their support for the new Epson 10600 (drivers therefore, that is) with their Best Screenproof and Best Colorproof packages.
Gretag-MacBeth exhibited their Color Profiler system, combining software and hardware in several bundles.
Monaco was exhibiting their full line of color management products, exp. Their MonacoPROFILER MonaqcoPROOF profile-building software, and their MonaceEZcolor simplified color management system.
Coloreal products were exhibited by their manufacturer, WayTech Develop. While primarily aimed at the photography market, a couple of their products are directly applicable by digital printers at the commercial level: Coloreal Pro is a comprehensive set of color management tools, at the working professional level; Coloreal Visual and Coloreal JustRealColor offer commercial quality color matching tools. (JustRealColor applicability is on internet-based operations.)
Other technology was, primarily and most obviously, the electronic publishing products. There were products too many to count, in the Asset Management and Content Management areas, and also in the STML and XTML area. There were several content management packages that appeared applicable here in the office, and a site-indexing package that does what we are trying to develop now, including searching and indexing PDF documents.
One other product exhibited, of particular interest here, was the StoneHinge system available from Stone Editions. This product is essentially archival media, 100% cotton rag digital album pages, ready to process through a printer (Epson 2000P illustrated) with perforated edging to the left, ready to mount in an album. (http://www.stoneeditions.com)
Another product discussed by the Digital Atelier folks, but not exhibited per se, is "inkAID" - a set of precoats which give artists using inkjet printers a wider range of substrate options. Developed in conjunction with digital artists, inkAID can be used on papers of all kinds, aluminum, acrylic sheets, and wood, for just a few examples. (http://www.inkaid.com)
Digital Fine Art at SeyboldSF
At Seybold SF 2002, there were numerous places at which digital art was covered in one form or another (e.g., the Epson, Roland, and Lyson Ink booths all referenced or showed "digital art" re their products). However, there were three areas of digital fine art that merit discussion here: The Seybold Digital Art Contest and Gallery, the Digital Atelier display, and the PhotoSpin "Top Spinner" awards presented at Seybold.
Seybold Digital Art Gallery: At the Seybold San Francisco 2002 exposition, the organizers mounted an exhibit of the entered graphics and winners, for their third annual Digital Art Gallery, organized by industry consultant and author Daryl Wise. Of the twenty five graphics exhibited, the two acknowledged award winners were:
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(More images can be found on the Seybold website at: http://www.seyboldseminars.com/digitalart.)
Note: All images for the Seybold Seminars Digital Art Gallery were printed compliments of Hewlett-Packard using the Designjet 5000PS printer with HP UV inks and HP media.
Judges for the Seybold Seminars Digital Art Gallery competition were drawn from a wide spectrum including diverse areas involved with the digital fine art arena. The 2002 judges were: Helen Bruno (art director for Seybold Seminars), Charmaine Conui (art director for Key3Media which produces the Seybold Seminars) Chet Helms (Digital photographer, owner and founder of Family Dog Productions), Harald Johnson (author, Mastering Digital Printing), Gwendolyn Lewis Huddleston (Art Institutes International, San Francisco), Stephanie Ryan (director of marketing for Minolta), Ruth Waters (Silicon Valley Art Museum), and Mark Zimnmer (digital artist and co-creator of Painter).
Digital Atelier: The three ladies of Digital Atelier (Karen Schminke, Dot Krause, and Bonny Lhotka) were present, and definitely accounted for, at Seybold. They had a large booth area, probably something line 40' by 60', in which the displayed sample work by each, had a discussion area in which each discussed their own work, and other pertinent subjects), and a demonstration area including a Mutoh Falcon 8000 printer. Their area was surrounded on three sides with typical show decorator panels 8 ft high, with the artists' work hung on these panels, both inside and outside.
While the artists did discuss their creative processes, and did a little promotion for a "product" that they offer for sale, the crux of their display was of course, the art. And while all showed exceptionally well, Bonny's large triptych Echo was unquestionably the piece de resistance of the entire Seybold exhibition. While the exhibited piece was roughly 36 inches high, and each of the three panels approx. 18 inches wide, the "original" was a commissioned architectural installation for Avia headquarters, some 12 ft wide by 8 ft high.
Production notes of interest: The images were printed on the Mutoh Falcon 8000, with its fixed dot function (a great benefit in doing lenticular images), using a PostScript RIP, Roland PetG HighGloss Film, 3D Genius interlacing software, and Microlens 3D 201pi Lenticular lens.
Bonny Lhotka's lenticular Echo
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Lhotka's Echo, installed in the Avaya headquarters building
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PhotoSpin "Top Spinner" Awards: These awards, sponsored by PhotoSpin, a supplier of digital images ("rights free" images), presented four awards: "Best of Illustration", "Best of Print", "Best of Web", and People's Choice Award" a "best in show" type voted on by the public, rather than the six PhotoSpin judges. The judges panel included: Scott Kelby, Helene DeLillo, Cher Threinen-Pendarvis, Jeremy Sutton, Greg Sharpless and Ben Willmore. This year's Top Spinner Awards winners are:
• Best of Illustration - Alex Manfredini, African Skyline
• Best of Print - Jennifer Childress, Medical Brochure
• Best of Web - Meg Murphy, The Animal Doctor Site
• People's Choice Award - Kerry Gavin, Pig
While both the People's Choice and Best of Illustration awards are shown below, all winners' submissions can be viewed at http://www.photospin.com/spinnerawards.
Other Digital Fine Art: Two other areas merit passing notice: (1) The HP Digital Gallery exhibited the Beatles series they worked with CBS on, and the Marvin Greene photographs, both of which have been represented in the Schellenberg program over the past two years. (2) Digital Artist Stephen Johnson exhibited several of his renowned digital photo panoramic landscapes of the West.
SHOW DETAILS:
Seybold SF
September 9-12, 2002
Moscone Center
San Francisco, California USA
http://www.seyboldseminars.com
John Shaw is the managing director of the Digital Printing & Imaging Association in Fairfax, Virginia, USA.
He can be reached at jshaw@dpia.org.
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