One notable aspect of digital printing’s emergence has been the way it spawns new business models: its scale and flexibility has enabled more personalised services to grow and prosper. Around the world there are companies making greetings cards, prospectuses, children’s books, property brochures and business stationery like that of Moo (see ‘Moo’).
An impressive success of recent years is that of Italian company Graphistudio, which makes elaborate photographic wedding albums that are closer in look and feel to collectors’ editions of art or fashion catalogues. They are printed digitally, using machines such as the Indigo 5600 and Durst Lambda on superior paper in twenty different formats using traditional binding techniques and a great variety of finishes.
Based at the foot of the Dolomites in Arba, near Venice, the company is expanding fast, selling its services through an international network of wedding photographers. Graphistudio encourage photographers to join via roadshows, conferences, the ‘Wedding Album of the Year Award’ and workshop sessions with high-profile instructors, such as Australian photographer Yervant, arguing plausibly that the happy couple deserve more than a disc of their wedding pictures.
At the Fedrigoni 2013 Top Application Awards, Graphistudio took first prize in the HP Indigo Digital Printing section for its ‘Digital Matted Album.’ The judge said: ‘This album expresses the potential of HP Indigo digital printing at the highest level.’
This marriage of upstart digital printing with the institution of wedding photography seems set for connubial bliss.