Jan. 2, 2006—Gravure Association of America Inc. (GAA) held its first day-long seminar Dec. 8, at the Cornell Club in New York City. Those who attended ?Do You Speak Gravure?? included print buyers from several major publishing houses, as well as paper sellers, printers, and educators interested in learning exactly how the gravure process works, where problems occur, and how they can be fixed.

GAA Technical Director Bill Sunter, speaker for the event, covered topics such as the basic principles of gravure, types of inks used, and various parts of the press. He took questions from the audience, which focused on how each area can create problems, how to identify those dilemmas, and what measures a printer and a buyer can take together to solve them.

Because the bulk of the attendees were print buyers, the session turned to how to best approach a print shop with questions and solutions. Participants wanted to make sure they were educated on the process to become more of a partner in print production.

Two areas that received the most scrutiny were the impression rollers and the doctor blades of a gravure press, as these can be the cause of many print problems, such as smearing or off-center impressions. Mr. Sunter explained how each of these works, what their function is, and how they contribute to the final product.

New Technologies
The sponsor for the event was Eastman Kodak, with a representative from the Graphic Communications Group (GCG) in attendance. Michele Laird-Williams, director, print media for GCG, took the opportunity to educate the audience about some new technologies Kodak has to offer the gravure world. One of those, thermal gravure, is a new engraving process that offers sharper quality. The process, called Exactus, offers a solution to the challenges of the current mechanical engraving method and provides numerous important benefits to gravure printers. It offers greater productivity than diamond engraving with all of the benefits associated with laser engraving.