Benny Landa pulled off marketing magic at Drupa and brought newfound excitement to an age-old craft. But can reality live up to the hype? We peak under the bonnet of these miracle presses.
Dubbed as the printing industry’s Steve Jobs, or a modern-day Gutenberg, Benny Landa certainly knows how to create a buzz. His radical new digital printing method based on tiny particles became a huge talking point at Drupa, where he took the wraps off one of the industry’s best-kept secrets: a whole new kind of printing.
Anyone who visited the Landa stand in Hall 9 was able to look under the hood (at least to some extent) of the Nanography presses that were running on the booth. Astonishingly, Landa not only brought a new way of printing to Drupa, but the company also brought six brand-new presses along, too.
The caveat is that not all of the presses on display were running live at the exhibition, although two of them were. The B2 S7 press (up to 12,000sph, or 6,000sph perfecting) and the B1-format S10 (up to 13,000sph, 6,500sph perfecting) were seen printing five times per day after the sold-out Landa theatre presentations.
What is Nanography?
It all starts with Landa’s NanoInk, which is made using nano-scale pigment particles that are “just a few tens of nanometres” in size. Chairman and founder Benny Landa explains that, at this size, the pigments develop special properties, producing a very pure colour, so less pigment is needed.
This aqueous ink is shipped as a concentrate in 15kg containers, and then diluted to the correct working concentration inside the press using ordinary tap water; internal systems within the press handle any necessary water treatment.
“We are not shipping water all around the globe,” says Landa, emphasising the environmentally friendly approach being championed by the company.
As the ink is used up, the containers are constantly weighed, so the press operator knows how much is left of any given colour. The containers collapse down when empty and Landa says they can be disposed of along with everyday plastic beverage bottles.
All of the Landa presses print in eight colours, which could be CMYK plus four special colours, or CCMMYYKK for faster printing or higher resolution. The presses’ resolution is 600dpi or 1,200x600dpi.