TAGA 2018 Registration & Membership
Registration for the 2018 Annual Technical Conference and membership renewal are now available for individuals that want to register early and/or pay next year’s membership dues. Conference registration is $695 for members. This applies to all TAGA, Printing Industries of America, Idealliance, IS&T, RadTech, and TAPPI members. You can register at tagaatc.printing.org/register.
Membership dues remain the same: $125 for professionals and $50 for retirees/students. Membership renewal can be done with conference registration or by itself online or with our PDF form.
Being a TAGA member includes:
- The presentation files from conferences, which can be accessed by going to http://www.taga.org and using the link for the TAGA member area. This contains all Annual Technical Conference presentations from 2011 to present, plus selected earlier presentations.
- Full papers presented at the previous two Annual Technical Conferences (also located in the TAGA member area of the website).
- TAGA Annual Technical Conference Proceedings, a perfect-bound book of executive summaries of all the papers presented at the annual conference with a CD of full papers.
- Discounted registration to the TAGA Annual Technical Conference.
- Archive papers from the TAGA Journal of Graphic Technology in the TAGA member area of the website.
- Discounts on TAGA publications, papers, and anthologies at www.printing.org/tagastore.
- The TAGA newsletter (issued four times a year).
Keynotes
The lineup of keynote speakers for the Annual Technical Conference (March 18–21 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA) is impressive, diverse, and growing. We expect to soon announce two additional keynoters. (L to R: Dr. Joe Webb, Ken Fleisher, Kate Smith)
Dr. Joe Webb will share insights from his new book, The Third Wave, as he discusses prints role in a new era of smarter mobile phones and social media, coupled with artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. A 38-year veteran of the print industry, Dr. Webb is one of the graphic arts industry’s best-known consultants, forecasters, and commentators. “Mondays with Dr. Joe” appears every week in WhatTheyThink where he directs their Economics and Research Center’s market analysis and forecasting initiatives. He has written or co-authored four books and numerous studies and articles.
Ken Fleisher is a color scientist with the National Gallery of Art (NGA). Ken, an RIT alumnus, will explain the work of a color scientist in the art world. His responsibilities at NGA include color management of digital cameras, printers, and monitors; FADGI 4-Star compliance for image capture; workflow optimization and automation; technical evaluation of new equipment for suitability of purpose; and R&D of new technologies. Ken will reveal what he’s learned working in an environment where color perfection is expected.
Kate Smith is an internationally-recognized color expert, media personality, and president of Sensational Color, which provides corporations guidance on their use of color in product development and marketing. Her color advice has been featured on TV and major magazines such as MSNBC, HouseBeautiful, and InStyle. Prior to becoming a corporate consultant, Kate was an executive with America Online, Giftkits, and Reebok. She’ll educate TAGA conference attendees on how color is used to evoke emotion and impact the sales of products.
Tour of Strategic Factory
Strategic Factory is the site of the tour that will take place during the upcoming Annual Technical Conference. What started out as a quick printing company has become, in a few short years, a powerhouse of graphic communications products and services in the Mid-Atlantic region. The company is a complete source for creative, marketing, and online services, in addition to video and radio production, and website design. On the strength of an in-house advertising agency it creates powerful, cohesive, and innovative marketing campaigns. Its large facility in Owings Mills, MD supports that goal by producing commercial print and wide-format signage and displays. Inc. magazine recently included Strategic Factory on its list of fastest-growing companies in America. When consultants urge printing companies to become multi-dimensional in order to respond to changing client communication needs, Strategic Factory is the kind of company they have in mind.
Papers for 2018 Annual Technical Conference
The abstracts submitted for the 2018 Annual Technical Conference are currently under review by our Papers Committee. Once the review process is complete, we will be notifying everyone who submitted a paper abstract about the Committee’s decision. This will occur in late November/early December.
If you intended on sending an abstract but missed the deadline, you can still send it to taga@printing.org.
Student Competitions
As we get closer to the Annual Technical Conference, we remind our student members and chapters of the deadlines for the student competitions. Those competitions are the Harvey Levenson Undergraduate Student Paper, Dusty Rhodes Graduate Student Paper, and Helmut Kipphan Student Publication Competition. The deadline to send in a paper for the Harvey Levenson and Dusty Rhodes competitions is January 18, 2018. The deadline for the Kipphan Cup is January 31, 2018 for the formatted PDFs. The printed books are due on the first day of the Annual Technical Conference—March 18, 2018.
If there any questions regarding student competitions, please email taga@printing.org.
TAGA on Social Media
TAGA is officially on social media. In particular, Twitter (https://twitter.com/tagaatc) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/tagaatc/). Both accounts will be updated with news and announcements, as well as images of conferences and other related events. Follow the accounts to keep up with us.
New Books on the Life and Times of Industry Innovators
The Graphic Communication Institute at the California Polytechnic State University (“Cal Poly”) recently published two books that provide insight into the early days of TAGA, and the events and individuals that created the technical foundation for today’s graphic communications industry.
Mike Bruno’s History of Printing in the 20th Century is primarily an autobiography of the co-founder and first president of TAGA and the ways he was responsible for, influenced, and intersected with developments in print communications technology. The section on how Mike helped develop the U.S. Army’s map reproduction capability during WWII is especially fascinating. The tough work of publishing an unfinished manuscript was led by Frank Romano, who had worked on it with Mike prior to his passing in 2005. Ultimately, in conjunction with Cal Poly where Frank regularly teaches, the book became a class project in one of Frank’s classes and the students are credited for their role in editing and preparing the book. The book contains periodic commentary by Frank and Gary Field. The 292-page book is available through Amazon.
Pioneers of Modern Offset Lithography is a companion to the above autobiography. It was apparent that Mike Bruno had intended to include in his manuscript a “Roll Call” of brief biographies of colleagues and compatriots that helped make the 20th century such an active period of technical breakthroughs. Gary Field and Frank Romano honored his intent by producing this 96-page book. The 57 biographies, mostly written by Mike, are joined with a historical review that examines individuals that received key awards, research paper authors, the industry’s response to environmental concerns, the evolution of electronic prepress, and accomplishments during the early days of the Lithographic Technical Foundation. It also highlights the leaders and key support personnel that ran organizations such as TAGA. Gary wrote most of the additional content, with contributions from Frank. The book is available through Cal Poly’s Graphic Communications Institute.
2017 Proceedings Available
The 2017 Proceedings are now available and have been sent out to all current TAGA members. The Proceedings consists of research papers submitted in time for publication by presenters at the 2017 Annual Technical Conference. To order your copy, you can use the TAGA store form at http://efiles.printing.org/eweb/docs/taga/Taga-Store-Order-Form.pdf. If you are a member and have yet to receive your copy, please email taga@printing.org to notify the administrator.