PUBLISHER
"If you buy a proprietary trapping solution, you're locked into their world. That's what led me to look for an open system solution."
At a sidewalk cafe in Brooklyn Heights, David De Milo is trying to finish his breakfast, but he's not having much luck. There's too much to tell about the project he's been working on over the last year. Since October of 1993 the forward thinking technologist has been building and staffing a state-of-the-art internal prepress facility for Newbridge Communications using Silicon Studio solutions from Silicon Graphics. De Milo, Newbridge's Director of Publishing Technology, estimates that the new facility will reduce by two-thirds the company's annual prepress costs.
Newbridge operates nineteen direct mail, special interest book clubs geared to professionals, and publishes large format books for children under the Macmillan imprint. The books, known as "Interactive Big Books," are intended for classroom use and sold directly to teachers. The company also produces learning games for children, and the promotional mailers associated with the book clubs.
"The quality of the mailers has a direct relation to whether or not people respond," De Milo explains. "So quality is very important to Newbridge. We believe that the little things are significant. In the thumbnail pictures of the new books, if the type is not readable, if the covers aren't attractive, people don't look much further. And of course the quality of the Interactive Big Books is absolutely critical."