Creative & design

Shutterfly acquires Spoonflower – helping over a million designers

Shutterfly (Redwood City, CA), a pioneer in online photo sharing and a leading digital platform for personalized products, has acquired Spoonflower, a global marketplace of custom fabrics, wallpaper and home décor. The acquisition, for about $225 million (USD), will connect 21 million active Shutterfly users to over one million designs by independent artists across the Spoonflower global marketplace. “At Shutterfly, we believe that anyone can be a creator,” said Hilary Schneider, CEO at Shutterfly. “This strategic acquisition helps us expand our lens on creativity to include not only photo personalization, but also a full range of custom designs created by independent artists. And we’ll break down the barriers to creating and discovering custom products, gifts and home décor items by providing expanded access to high-quality manufacturing and production at scale.” Shutterfly pioneered online photo sharing over 20 years ago, enabling millions of people worldwide to create a wide range of personalized products. Spoonflower was founded over 10 years ago to fill a need for print-on-demand fabrics, and has grown its product lines to include wallpaper and home décor.

Hilary Schneider

GMG introduces ColorBook for Pantone Colour simulations

GMG (Tuebingen, Germany) has unveiled a new sales tool for printers who want to physically demonstrate their colour competence in digital printing – even before an order is placed. GMG’s new ColorBook “establishes a building block for reliable colour communication,” said the company. “In digital printing, GMG’s ColorBook is a Pantone-licensed colour reference for simulating Pantone and custom brand colours based on a precise set of real-print conditions,” said Peter Schöffler, Product Manager at GMG. “We're not talking about a regular colour guide, but one created on your own press – in real printing conditions. In short, the GMG ColorBook shows the actual end result because it’s produced under production conditions on the same press, using the same inks, and on the production substrate. From design to prepress, from the pressroom to clients and brands – if everyone’s expectations are aligned, we create reassuring process reliability from start to finish.”

Enfocus releases Connect 2021

Enfocus (Gent, Belgium), an industry leader in PDF quality control, advanced PDF editing and workflow automation for the printing industry, has released Connect 2021 – which brings Connect YOU and Connect ALL up to speed with the latest PitStop Libraries. Connect 2021 also provides support for macOS 11 Big Sur and Apple Silicon via Rosetta. The features that come with PitStop 2020 and PitStop 2021 are valuable additions to Connect. PitStop 2020 included Overlay PDF, Check Page Bleed, Add Copied Graphic with variables, Normalize Pantone Names, and Check for Corrupt Images. PitStop 2021 introduces Check Bleed on Contour, Impose to Spreads, Consolidate Fonts, and Flatten Type 3 Fonts. Check Bleed on Contour checks defined bleed along a die-line. Impose to Spreads can impose a PDF as either printer or reader spreads. Consolidate Fonts cleans up type fonts for more efficient processing. And Flatten Type 3 Fonts flattens these fonts into raster or vector content for more consistent output.

Monadnock launches new swatchbook for fine printing papers

Monadnock Paper Mills (Bennington, NH), the oldest continuously operating paper mill in the U.S., has released a new swatch book dedicated to its virgin-fibre, fine-printing papers. The paper grades are alkaline pH and buffered to achieve archival longevity. They’re also crafted to the paper-longevity standards of the American National Standards Institute, are FSC-Certified, manufactured carbon neutral, and made with 100% renewable Green-e certified wind-powered electricity. The new swatch book also contains compelling images that show the effects of colour on the level surfaces of the papers. It demonstrates that by simply combining CMYK inks, users can create duotone, tritone or quadtone effects with dramatic and exceptional results. “Here at Monadnock, we like to say that our fine printing papers are the result of more than 200 years of craftsmanship,” said Lisa Taylor, VP of Sales and Marketing. “We can’t wait to see how today’s designers, brands and publishers put them to effective use.”