It’s amazing how well the G7 methodology works. Extreme examples can often be found in catalogues. Take this LL Bean spread—the cover is printed high-speed web offset on a SWOP3 paper, the inside is printed gravure on a very thin paper designed to reduce mailing costs.
Clothing catalogues have to be as exacting for colour as printing technology allows. Colour that’s not accurate leads to customer disappointment, lost sales, increased costs for the company to retrieve the articles and ultimately poor sales.
What is remarkable is that the colour is so similar on cross-over pages given that they are printed in different printing plants on different substrates and with different printing processes. I find this an amazing G7 feat!
Our task for a G7 qualification is making multiple presses and proofers match one another visually and numerically and point to printing specifications such as GRACoL or SWOP. A single printing plant location is still a challenge of teamwork, technology and good process control, but the example above shows that much more is possible breaking the limits of distance and time.