ICScolor checks in with clients using Remote Director for decades
Daily Mail, owned by dmg media, published in London is the United Kingdom’s highest-circulated daily newspaper. Along with their sister newspapers they have benefited from digital proofing from Remote Director for well over 10 years.
The Bauer Media Group has leveraged the flexibility of digital colour proofing to deliver quality assurance in the publishing of over 40 magazines for a UK and European audience.
These major print publishers, along with many others, have pioneered the acceptance of digital proofing vs. hard copy proofs and have experienced the advantages of using Remote Director. While in today’s world of working from home some may be new to this idea, our clients have been successfully benefiting from digital color proofing for years.
As we approach the end of our second decade in business, we wanted to share with our new users and prospects how a few of our long time clients continue to benefit from this technology.
Terry Hawkins
Business Services Manager
How long have you been using Remote Director?
I can’t recall the date that we started using RD but it must be at least 10 years. DMG:media have had a working relationship with Dan that must be going on 30 years, so discussions on using digital color proofing in our workflows had been ongoing sometime before we started to use this. Once we made the jump it was a relatively easy choice due to this working relationship.
What problem were you trying to solve when you installed it?
There was a number of issues that we were looking to resolve by introducing Remote Director into our production workflow, mainly we were looking at consistency when reviewing and editing proofs across multiple departments as well as locations. Remote Director solved this issue as well as reducing costs for hard copy proofs which was also a key factor.
Where do you use Remote Director (image development, internal and/or client proofing workflow, at press)?
Originally it was just bought in to work within our magazine workflows for colour consistency as well as ease of the editorial teams marking up corrections. But we soon realized that the system could be utilized for multiple functions across all our production workflows. For instance one of key areas that has saved both time and money is the ability see whether there has been a colour or black only change to our newspaper pages during editions. This not only saved us time on plate output but also the cost of unnecessary plates being made.
Who else uses your system (clients, suppliers)?
The system is mainly used by our editorial teams and our print sites. We also have an offshore team that access the system for colour mark ups.
What benefits have you realized by using Remote Director? (reduced timelines, cost savings, quality improvements, sustainability)?
Editorial teams no longer have to wait 15 to 20 min for a hard copy proof, their RD digital color proofs are there within minutes and they can view edits as many times as they like without incurring the cost of any proofing materials.
Has COVID increased your use of RD?
I wouldn’t say this has increased our usage as RD has been a main source of proofing for a good number of years now. But what I would say is that without having this in place already it would have significantly made our transition to COVID working a lot more difficult. With RD we have still managed to maintain the ability to mark up for edits and keep colour consistency across our products.
Darren Keeling
Publishing Systems Support Analyst
How long have you been using Remote Director?
Remote Director was introduced to H. Bauer publishing originally in 2006.
What problem were you trying to solve when you installed it?
Bauer wanted to eliminate paper proofs as these were generally expensive and time consuming. We also wanted a solution that could be utilized within all of our UK Print sites.
Where do you use Remote Director (image development, internal and/or client proofing workflow, at press)?
Currently we are using Remote Director as part of the approval process within are Design Teams.
Who else uses your system (clients, suppliers)?
It is also a great tool for quality control for our Production Department to utilize after the magazines have been printed.
What benefits have you realized by using Remote Director? (reduced timelines, cost savings, quality improvements, sustainability)?
We have realized a massive cost savings from the previous annual cost structure from printers, as well as software and consumable savings. The ability to accuracy monitor colours throughout the production process has been a huge benefit to us in reducing errors and improving quality.
Has COVID increased your use of RD?
Not really, as we have been using this system for many years, we were lucky that we were already prepared.
Remote Director goes from think to ink
