Personalized at the touch of a button: The Print & Digital Convention 2023 whets the appetite for print products of the future

This year, too, the Print & Digital Convention took visitors on a journey into the print universe in Düsseldorf, and for the first time, WirbelWild was there with its ManyPrint Solutions software. We showed the around 1,200 participants with individualized brochures directly on site what opportunities interfaces and digital data offer for the print sector and how easy it is to implement individualized brochures like these.

The Print & Digital Convention describes itself as an experience, content and participation format — the around 70 exhibitors on the trade fair days on May 16 and 17, 2023 lived up to this orientation: The participants impressively demonstrated how modern strategies, technologies and Ideas that take print communication into the future.

We presented ourselves as an exhibitor for the first time with our ManyPrint Solutions software. At our trade fair stand, we printed individualized trade fair brochures ad hoc, which we could immediately give to those interested. With the live production, we were able to demonstrate to trade fair visitors how easy ManyPrint Solutions is to use and how sophisticated the result can be.

What worked so seamlessly at the stand went hand in hand with plenty of preparation: how the versatility of our applications would be presented on 36 pages had to be carefully thought out. With great attention to detail, we prepared content that not only describes our services, but also focuses on the recipients. Because for us, individualization doesn't stop with the address: Our visitors to the stand particularly enjoyed our love letter — of course with a kiss on the lips and addressed only to them — or a very personal sample made from the first letter of their first name. Each brochure is absolutely unique – just like our guests themselves.

From the vision to the unique piece: printing and binding

Since we arrived with as little luggage as possible and still wanted to show professional printed matter, we printed it as a combination of pre-prints and impressions. The brochures had outstanding print quality thanks to the high-speed inkjet and were still individualized for each person.

For further processing or binding on site, we tied the brochure together using gift ribbon. The look of the square brochures was reminiscent of a gift that fit our motto “Celebrate a new generation of printed matter with us.” A special highlight is the pattern on the front of the brochure: it was printed in silver and only exists once.

Maximum dynamics, little effort: technical implementation

The trade fair brochure should provide an example of how dynamic ManyPrint Solutions works and how little input data can be used to generate printed matter with added value.

We therefore only asked for the name, place of residence and industry of the recipient.

The brochure differentiates between formal and informal approaches. The text is available in various versions aimed at printers, publishers, agencies and others. When the brochure is generated, an individual pattern is then created for each person. For our individualized love letter, a QR code is generated that can be used to send an SMS. In addition, the distance between our office in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt and the recipient's place of residence is calculated and integrated into the text.

A playing field for AI and creativity

We have integrated a few jokes and details:

• After two introductory pages and before the brochure begins with the actual content, a tracing paper appears with a cookie consent banner, as you would see on the Internet. We couldn't resist the dig and admittedly made a bit of fun about the fact that people in the digital space are constantly being interrupted by such banners. Unthinkable in print – thank God.
• To underline our understanding of price transparency, we printed the relevant page on tracing paper. There is also a small footnote there in which we point out that our prices do not change, even in the small print.
• Everyone is talking about AI — but how you can benefit from it, especially in the printing industry, is not yet entirely clear. We asked Midjourney how they envision ManyPrint Solutions integrating a generated image into our brochure. The added value can of course be questioned, but the bridge between layout generation and AI content has been created. A good start!

A greeting to touch: papers

Our content can be experienced tactilely on five selected papers in a square format measuring 21 × 21 cm. For the cover we use “Les Naturals” in the color sapphire, a high-quality recycled cardboard made from recycled paper fibers. Thanks to the material inclusions, each cover is as individual as our brochure itself.

We make no compromises when it comes to environmentally friendly solutions: We print the majority of our brochure content on white “Jupp wiess” paper, which is made from 100 percent recycled paper. The manufacturer also uses a sustainable process in production. But that's not the only thing that's important to us when choosing paper: it's very important to us that we provide excellent reproduction of our colorfully designed pages, on which we generously place images, illustrations and graphics. “Jupp wiess” comes with a high whiteness of 135 CIE and conveys our potpourri of colors in excellent quality.

It goes without saying that a love letter should be written on paper in the color “Candy Pink” and requires special tactile appeal. The manufacturer “Colorplan” offers the perfect natural paper for our declaration of love. We use tracing papers from Cromático between the pages: they are characterized by good printability and high contrast. Of course, this paper is also 100 percent recyclable. A particularly durable product in our selection is the MultiArt Silk paper made from primary fibers from the manufacturer Invercote Creato.

Read with your senses: fonts and colors

The basic font used in the brochure is the corporate font from ManyPrint Solutions: Ballinger. The modern sans serif by Max Phillips conveys our values ​​with its humanistic shapes: people are the focus. Approachability and down-to-earthness play a crucial role for us. And of course, Ballinger's large medium length makes it easy to read even at small degrees and is ideal for use in print and digital.

Ballinger is complemented by Crystal Kluge's Epicursive. The manuscript accompanies the continuous text with short, concise notes. Their curved shape breaks up rigid structures and gives the pages originality and warmth.

And the love letter? He finds a worthy bearer of his message in Mats-Peter Forss's extravagant Wilderness Typeface — a real eye-catcher.

Exchange at eye level

At the Print & Digital Convention, we didn't just exchange ideas about the possibilities of our software and give visitors a very special souvenir: We took home a lot of inspiration from the conversations with the people at our stand, as well as the innovations of the other exhibitors will be with us for a while. We particularly see confirmation of the fact that nowadays there is a lot of value placed on communication at eye level between companies and their customers — this of course includes print products as an important means of communication. And: that individualization runs through all areas — from text to visualization. Digital advances are not bypassing the print industry and should be seen as an opportunity. These impulses encourage us to continually develop our service and software. Inspired by the ideas for the future, we get back to work with a lot of drive and even more joy.