Welcome to our Award Winning Bindery Success Blog!

The old saw about "the more things change the more they stay the same" seems to hold true in the world of bindery and post-press. Sure, technology in our industry is changing on a daily basis, but one thing that never goes out of fashion is traditional hand-work and old-style techniques.

Complex digital printing equipment allows for the production of high quality jobs in ever-smaller quantities. It's precisely because of this decline in quantities that a little old-fashioned bindery skill can often outperform production equipment.

The popularity of these 4 articles proves the point for us...they continue to get a constant stream of hits daily. In case you missed them, take a few minutes to check them out or pass them along to the new folks in your bindery.

• How to Do a Gatefold Without Gatefold Equipment
• How to Fold Digital Jobs Fast Without a Folding Machine
• Save Loads of Time with this Counting Technique
• Finish an 8-Page Brochure with Limited Bindery Equipment

Reading bindery equipment instruction manuals (or any manual for that matter!) can be a chore. It’s work to learn something new. For the writer of the manual, it’s often hard to clearly convey a task in the written word. And sometimes as readers, we find ourselves trying to understand pages that might be poorly translated from another language.

It’s no surprise that letterpress printing seems to be on the rise. Paper still has power. There’s an undeniable appeal to the look, texture and feel of metal type and engravings imprinted on old fashioned or even homemade paper. Even the latest all-digital companies acknowledge that paper just might have its place. The online invitation company Evite recently began offering… gasp …paper invitations through Evite Ink.

I periodically get letters from bindery equipment operators and others in the printing industry who feel stuck in their jobs, or are underemployed, unemployed or are at a loss as to how to advance their career. They want advice. Considering the very personal nature of their situations I realize that reaching out like this is a big, vulnerable step. I know because I’ve been in the same situation.

“Everything customers tell me over the phone is a lie,” said my friend in regard to troubleshooting calls. He’s an electronics technician for a major print finishing equipment manufacturer and in the course of his job he fields help-desk calls.