Meet the Xerox Iridesse Production Press
What’s so special about the new behemoth in our production room? In addition to the usual four CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black) colors that traditional printers use, the Xerox Iridesse utilizes specialty ink cartridges in gold, silver, white, and clear. This allows us to design and print premium products with metallic and spot gloss finishes, rather than dealing with metallic foil die-cutting.
Xerox released its Iridesse printers in May 2018. In 2019, Xerox Iridesse won a top prize at the 2019 European Digital Press Association Awards, taking home the award for Innovation in Digital Production.
The Iridesse is the only digital press that can print up to six colors in a single pass with precision and the ability to embellish with decorative metallic, clear, and white inks. The design possibilities really are endless.
We’ve seen some lustrous results with brochures, direct mail campaigns, wedding invitations, luxe business cards, awards and certificates.
YellowDog’s New Trick
This massive production press was, literally, the first piece of equipment installed in our new building, in late July 2019. And then we officially moved in early August. The production team was going back and forth between locations during that time, so they could get efficient training on the new machine. Even the design team spent a day in the new empty space with just the Iridesse and a Xerox employee who got us up to speed on the incredible powers of the machine.
The in-house design team has also gone through a full-day program of design training that taught them the nuances of designing for these specialty techniques. They also learned how to work in tandem with the production team to achieve the desired effects.
Our skill with the Iridesse reached a new level after a virtual training in January with the staff at Xerox. The in-house design team got a lot of questions answered about the layering effects of the metallic inks and the white inks, overcame roadblocks they were facing, and are now more capable of adapting designs and adding specialty finishes.
Printing Straw Into Gold
In the nine months since we adopted this new technology, we’ve seen a range of results, in terms of production, marketing, and sales. After a lot of trial and error in the beginning, we’ve designed and produced some really remarkable pieces with the Iridesse.
The first success story for a client was a certificate we designed for Iron Woman Construction. Iron Woman was rolling out a new employee-ownership program and looked to our design team to create a piece that really gave this program the royal treatment — without breaking the bank. The design team created gold-emblazoned certificates for each employee-owner. They worked with production to get just the right look and the client was thrilled with the final product.
Another success story was a graphic poster we designed as a piece of giveaway swag at our new location grand opening party last September. The design team created a modern art-deco style poster highlighting Downtown Denver and the Rocky Mountains. They created four versions of the poster that incorporated silver on two and gold on two. The giveaway posters were an incredible hit with everyone and have become one of our staple giveaways at trade shows and events. We’ve received many orders from giving these posters away as swag.
In February, we entered this poster in the Western States Printing Alliance “Print Excellence” award, and it is currently a finalist in the “specialty finishes” category. Final placement will be announced later in 2020. Fingers crossed!
What Can We Shine Up For YOU?
Get in touch with our team to talk about using specialty inks and finishes for your next big project. We aim to dazzle.
by YellowDog.