Northprint

Well, Northprint is just next week. We haven't exhibited at Harrogate for a few years, and I'm rather looking forward to it. That makes the third trade fair this year - Jaume Casals hosted Printsum at Grafispag in Barcelona in March - we're getting to be quite international!

One of the things we'll be trying out will be a new projector screen for demonstrations. It's a bit innovative (and rather unconventional), as it's basically just an oval of fabric held out by a flexible spring steel band. When you first see it unpacked it's a bit startling - a small carry case unpacks practically by itself to this enormous great screen.

What concerned us far more, though, was how on earth to get it back into the case. Here is this enormous almost rigid object, but how on earth can it be folded up? After all you can't fold a steel band! In the end we did it - took us about an hour to figure it out, but it's really quite simple when you have the knack of it.

Once again I'm forced back to an analogy with software - as in any discipline there can be a learning curve, but when things fall into place, their simplicity can pay amazing dividends.  I could even extend the metaphor further and talk about flexibility, lightness (it only weighs about a kilo) etc. but I think you get my drift!

Anyway I look forward to meeting some of you at Northprint next week. Otherwise, stay in touch.

Warm regards

Richard Fergusson