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GCSF Gets a Helping Hand from “Big Apple Big Hearts,” a Sandy Relief Fund for Students

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Jessie Murphy (left) and Danielle Greenstein, founders of “Big Apple Big Hearts”

Two students who received stipends at the event staged last night by the Graphic Communications Scholarship, Award, and Career Advancement Foundation (GCSF) were paid out of a fund that didn’t exist last year—and wouldn’t exist today except for the unusual efforts of two childhood friends determined to do something for those whose lives were disrupted by superstorm Sandy.

The benefactors are Jessie Ann Murphy and Danielle Greenstein, founders of “Big Apple Big Hearts.” This fund helps students in need of aid in the aftermath of the storm. Last night, it was the source of two $2,500 grants for Shannon Berry and Hillary Sells, both currently studying at Parsons the New School for Design.

Murphy and Greenstein have raised a total of $15,000 for the fund, including $3,000 from the sale of T-shirts and $10,000 in a contribution obtained from Quad Graphics. Murphy, a former GCSF scholarship recipient, is a freelance graphic designer and a recent graduate of New York City College of Technology. Greenstein is the principal designer at Midtown Studios LLC, an interior design firm.

Friends since summer camp, both knew people in neighborhoods hit hard by the storm. A week after Sandy passed through the metro region leaving $50 billion worth of damage in its wake, Murphy and Greenstein resolved to make up some of the loss to their peers even if on a small scale.

Murphy turned for advice to the seasoned fundraisers of GCSF, whom she credits with being unstintingly supportive of her education and the development of her career. “I learned a lot about giving back,” she says. Murphy’s continuing connection with GCSF includes serving as one of its trustees and as a member of its newly formed mentoring committee.

She and Greenstein applied the example of GCSF to their own fundraising plans, and thus was “Big Apple Big Hearts” conceived and launched. The drive continues with a planned “spa gala” in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, in August, aimed at raising awareness of “Big Apple Big Hearts” and attracting donations to it.”

“The more money we continue to raise, the more people we’re going to help.”  Murphy says.

For more information about “Big Apple Big Hearts,” e-mail BigAppleBigHearts@gmail.com.

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Trend Offset Printing Sponsors GCSF Marketing Design Competition

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From left: Joshua Martinez, Mark Andriella, Nick Patrissi, Monique Sterling, Maggie Nielsen, Natalie Alcide, Jessie Murphy, Jerry Mandelbaum.

This year, the annual presentation ceremony of the Graphic Communications Scholarship, Award, and Career Advancement Foundation (GCSF) showcased something new: a design competition that brought together five motivated and talented students to work on a real-world marketing project.

With the sponsorship of Trend Offset Printing, design students from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), Hunter College, and SUNY Purchase worked with Nick Patrissi, Trend Offset’s director of marketing, and professional designer Michelle Ratzlaff on the project under normal deadlines. After several rounds of review based on submitted designs, work created by Joshua Marz FIT was selected for use in a live marketing campaign.

According to Patrissi, Trend Offset was impressed with the quality and professionalism shown by all of the students. “We got  a lot more than we expected,” he said. “A beautiful poster design to use for a promotional campaign for clients and staff, and a chance to work with some very motivated and gifted young professionals.”

Patrissi said that GCSF is considering making the competition part of its new mentoring initiative. This program aims to provide a venue for career-focused learning experiences by connecting students and industry professionals.

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Sandy Alexander Brings Second HP Indigo 10000 On Line, Expanding Its Capabilities in 1:1 Marketing

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June 18 – Sandy Alexander (Clifton, NJ), a leading direct mail and commercial print provider, announced today that it has concurrently brought on line its second HP Indigo 10000 Digital Press while also expanding its capabilities in 1:1 marketing.

Sandy Alexander was one of the original beta sites for the HP Indigo 10000 and the first in the U.S. to be operational with the new press.  Since the system is primarily used for 1:1 marketing / variable data printing campaigns, the company also has expanded its team of experts and its capabilities in variable data composition, data management, and custom workflows.

“The demand for the new, larger sheet size provided by the HP Indigo 10000 in combination with our variable data printing capabilities has been phenomenal,” said Mike Graff, CEO and president of Sandy Alexander. “The HP Indigo 10000 allows us to transform our offerings, created by the unique combination of format size and image quality. That capability in combination with our industry-leading 1:1 and cross marketing capabilities lets us support new programs for our Fortune 500 clients in the automotive, retail, financial and travel industries.”

The HP Indigo 10000 Digital Press is the first B2-format (29.5″ x 20.9″) sheetfed solution from HP Indigo.  According to Graff, combining the new sheet size with expanded content management offerings enables clients to more easily implement and manage personalized communications with highly targeted messaging.

“This has provided our clients with increased creativity and efficiency and has resulted in more impactful marketing campaigns,” he said.  “This has generated a competitive advantage in the marketplace for our clients while also dramatically increasing their marketing ROI.”

The two HP Indigo 10000 Digital Presses are complemented by an HP Indigo W7200 digital web press and an HP Indigo 7000 sheetfed press. The company has also applied its proprietary cross-platform color management solutions to these systems.

Sandy Alexander Inc. is the largest independently owned, high-end commercial graphics communications company in the nation, serving the needs of Fortune 500 companies and many other enterprises from coast to coast.  Sandy Alexander’s broad array of services ranges from digital solutions, sheetfed and web capabilities, webs with in-line finishing and personalization, and wide- and grand-format printing for retail visual merchandising.

Sandy Alexander is also a leader in protecting the environment with 100% wind energy; Sustainable Green Partnership (SGP) certification; carbon-neutral facilities for digital, wide- and grand-format production; and tri-certification for chain-of-custody paper.

For more information, call Doug Hazlett at (973) 470-8100 or visit www.sandyinc.com.

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Passion for Graphics Education Burns Brightly at Gamma Gold Key Award Ceremony

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The Gamma Chapter of Gamma Epsilon Tau held its Gold Key and Founders Award ceremony in New York City on May 29. The annual event salutes outstanding achievement in graphic communications and promotes the value of higher education in the field.

This year’s honorees were Mike Connors, managing director, production department, The New York Times, who received the Gamma Gold Key Award; and Frank Romano, professor emeritus, Rochester Institute of Technology, selected for the Founders Gold Medal and Citation Award.

Gamma Epsilon Tau is a national fraternity for students of graphic communications, and Gamma chapter is its branch at New York City College of Technology (City Tech). The school’s department of Advertising Design and Graphic Arts (ADGA) has an enrollment of more than 1,000.

The event, organized by ADGA Professor Frank Adae, was held in its customary venue, the 101 Club on Park Avenue in midtown Manhattan. The evening’s master of ceremonies, Jack Powers, noted that the ceremony was taking place in a “big week” for graphics studies at City Tech, a week that also included ADGA’s annual student portfolio review and design competition.

When it comes to education for graphic communications and other high-tech disciplines, “no place in the city is more on top of that than City Tech,” Powers declared. Russell Hotzler, president of City Tech, said that it wouldn’t be possible to provide the quality of education that the school offers without the support of industry members who back its efforts on behalf of students.

Mike Connors (left) accepts the Gamma Gold Key Award from Jack Powers (center) and Prof. Frank Adae (right).

Exemplary among them is Connors, who assists students by hosting plant tours for them at the newspaper’s production facility in College Point, Queens. He also operates a student internship program there, raises funds for learning and physically challenged children, and is active with public-private educational initiatives like PENCIL.

Nick D’Andrea, manager of the College Point plant, cited Connors’s “driving passion to get things done” both professionally and in support of education.

“When you have a task that needs to be done, give it to Mike,” D’Andrea said.

Referring to students in his Gold Key acceptance remarks, Connors spoke of “our obligation as business people and adults to take care of them.” Most important to impress upon young people in graphics studies programs, he said, is that “in our world, it comes down to one word, quality.”

Powers and Adae present the Founders Gold Medal and Citation Award to Frank Romano (left).

Frank Romano, the recipient of the Founders Award, arguably is the most widely known and highly regarded of all specialists in graphic communications. This blogger, called upon to make Romano’s introduction, noted that his name “has become synonymous with higher education for the graphic arts.”

“it doesn’t stretch the truth to say that because of the enormous amounts of source material that he has created for the rest of us to use, he is an invisible presence in every classroom where graphic communications is taught,” we observed.

Romano spoke bluntly both to students and to educators and industry members who are trying to help them build the foundations of their careers.

He told the students that as products of an educational system that graduates 40,000 people trained in graphics every year, “you’d better be really good at making something print.”

But in some cases, Romano warned educators and their industry supporters, “we’re not teaching the right stuff. We’ve failed at that.” He urged everyone with responsibility for educational programs like ADGA’s to be sure that what they are teaching touches all of the bases covered by graphic communications as the industry practices it today.

In the induction ceremony for new student officers of Gamma Chapter, Gamma Epsilon Tau, the lighting of the candles symbolizes the light of knowledge overcoming the darkness of ignorance.

The program concluded with a candle-lighting ceremony that marked the induction of new student officers into Gamma Epsilon Tau’s Gamma Chapter.

The fraternity’s name comes from ancient Greek words representing its purposes and ideals: Gamma for letter, literature, or alphabet; Epsilon, for science or knowledge; and Tau, for art or craft. Thus translated, Gamma Epsilon Tau means “the science or knowledge of the art and craft of letters.”

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The Wall Street Group Rebuilds, Endures, and Thrives in the Wake of Hurricane Sandy

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Editor’s note: the following was provided by The Wall Street Group, a full-service offset and digital printing company in operation since 1966.

This video shows the extent of the damage done to plant and equipment of The Wall Street Group by superstorm Sandy last October.

Jersey City, NJ – On the morning of October 29th, 2012, the paper was loaded onto double skids, sand bags were placed by the large overhead doors of the plant’s loading bay, the lights turned off, and employees sent home where they waited, for Sandy. That night, she hit.

The next morning, Al Basile, Sr. and Philip J. McGee of The Wall Street Group arrived at their plant of 43 years to find an overhead bay door to their building bent and lying in the parking lot. Skids of wet paper were broken and strewn all over the area: in the road, in the grass, on the fences. Inside, the building was dark and wet, pallet skids were knocked over, coating the floor with wet paper. The devastation that Sandy brought upon the building was astounding, including the visible four-foot water marks left behind by the flooding. There was no power, no heat, and no phones.

What was truly remarkable was that their first order of business in rebuilding was to off-load the customer work they had in-house so that deadlines would be met and schedules maintained.  The projects that had been printed and waiting to be delivered prior to the storm were destroyed and had to be reprinted.  All of this work was sent to four or five printer partners in the area that were not as adversely affected by Sandy, and after two weeks the network was up, allowing jobs to be sent electronically. A good start, but such a long road to go.

While these pressing jobs were taken care of they acquired pumps and generators and dumpsters so that they could start to clean, repair, and rebuild.  Long-term relationships with service companies and mechanics paid off as these folks pitched in with employees to get the plant back on line. Never once did they think about closing the doors and retiring. These seasoned men, the true salt of the earth, thought about getting their plant and their business back to the place it had been—where both their customers and employees depended on them.

January was the start of everything coming together, but it still remained a bumpy ride. All stored materials needed to be replaced. The mechanics, working with the pressmen, pulled out and replaced about 50 motors of varying sizes from the salvageable presses that were damaged by the flood waters. Their digital presses were completely ruined and so new state-of-the-art machines were purchased that today make up half of the business at Wall Street Group.

Little by little all of the equipment was either replaced or fixed.  All of the printed material that was stored at the plant was reprinted and today is safe and ready for customers. Despite having no electricity for two and a half weeks and no heat for five months, they got the job done. If not for the fortitude of their staff, their very loyal vendors who helped rebuild the motors and the printing presses, and their empathetic and understanding customers, the presses would remain silent.

As with every piece of equipment that needed to be rebuilt, so too the company and its owners and employees were rebuilt and today The Wall Street Group endures.  After a long delay in receiving assistance from FEMA and still battling with insurance providers, the nature of the owners of The Wall Street Group remains and endures as well: that toughness, that grit that got them through the worst storm to hit the Northeast in recorded history. They not only survived, but now they thrive. Everything is new again, and growing. As Phil McGee says, “We’re better than ever.”

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Best-of-Best Graphic Work by City H.S. Students to be Showcased in 12th Annual Competition

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On Friday, May 24, judges will select winners among the finalists in the 12th Annual Citywide Graphic Arts Competition, a contest that showcases the creativity of some of the city’s most talented high school students.

Judging by a panel of academics and graphics industry professionals will take place from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the ground-floor Atrium of New York City College of Technology (City Tech), located at 300 Jay Street in downtown Brooklyn. At 2 p.m., first, second, and third prizes will be awarded in the categories of digital photography, web site design, digital video production, desktop publishing and design, filmmaking, and package design.

The competition has been in progress since February, when students began working on projects at their local high schools. Two preliminary rounds of online judging followed, yielding the finalists whose work will be scrutinized at City Tech next week.

First-place winners will receive trophies for their schools and will be invited to tour the main production plant of The New York Times in College Point, Queens. Additional prizes are being provided by Adobe, Apple, B&H Camera, and other supporters.

The event is sponsored by the Graphics Industry Advisory Commission, part of the New York City Department of Education’s Advisory Council for Career and Technical Education. The Commission is a volunteer group of executives, academics, vendors, employers, and analysts dedicated to keeping New York’s schools up to date with change in the digital graphics industry. They also work to expand career opportunities for students preparing to enter the field.

For more information, contact Florence Jackson, Advisory Council for Career and Technical Education, at 212-374-4224 or by e-mail at jackso2@schools.nyc.gov

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Staten Island Printer, Battered by Sandy, Is Back Up and Running

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Congratulations to 3 Sons Printing for reopening on Staten Island after a six-month shutdown in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

The Staten Island Advance reports that the third-generation family business is back in production at a new location on Canal Street. The storm ruined the firm’s previous building on Bay Street, but the Esposito family hopes to demolish and rebuild it, according to The Advance.

For now, the full-service commercial printing company has found a safe haven where it can resume its role as a one-stop source of general printed products, advertising and marketing pieces, stationery, calendars, apparel, and accessories. 3 Sons Printing also operates Sign Men, a sign shop that soon will relocate to expanded space on Arthur Kill Road.

We’re glad to see 3 Sons Printing back on its feet and returning to growth mode after the pounding that Sandy gave it. We hope that all graphics firms in the region that took similar beatings from the killer storm will eventually have the same happy tale of recovery to tell.

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DM Leader Gregory P. Demetriou Named One of Long Island’s “Outstanding CEOs”

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Direct-mail marketing entrepreneur Gregory P. Demetriou has received an Outstanding CEO Award from Long Island Business News, recognizing him as one of Long Island’s leading executives.

Demetriou, founder and CEO of the Lorraine Gregory Communications Group in Farmingdale, NY, was honored along with 19 other Outstanding CEO recipients at a ceremony at the Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury, NY, on May 9.

Originally a detective with the New York City Police Department, Demetriou retired from the force in 1981 after being wounded in a shooting incident that led to his receipt of an NYPD Medal of Honor. He and his brother, the late Bob Demetriou, established a high-volume mailing operation for a brokerage firm in 1988. Four years later, Demetriou and his wife, Lorraine, formed the Lorraine Gregory Corp. and purchased Bi-County Mailing, a small mailing company in Bethpage, NY.

Today, the Lorraine Gregory Communications Group comprises Bi-County Mailing and its affiliates American Mail Communications, Direct Printing Connection, and Precision Envelope & Printing Co. The family-run business offers a full spectrum of graphic communications services including mailing and list management, consultation, project management, writing and editing, graphic design, e-mail marketing, digital and offset printing, bindery, services, and variable data printing.

The group’s mission is to develop and expedite marketing campaigns that enable businesses and organizations to reach their target markets and audiences. The company serves a client list of over 1,200 businesses and not-for-profits from its Farmingdale facility, where 34 people are employed.

Demetriou was one of the inaugural recipients of the annual Outstanding CEO Awards, created to recognize business and not-for-profit executives on Long Island who have consistently demonstrated remarkable leadership skills, integrity, values, vision and a commitment to excellence, financial performance, community, and diversity.

The May 9 ceremony also included a posthumous tribute to Leroy R. Grumman, co-founder and later chairman of the legendary aviation company that bore his name. Its latter-day incarnation, Northrup Grumman, was one of the sponsors of the event. A complete account with bios of all the recipients can be read here.

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Of “All the Buildings in New York,” This One Still Says “Print”

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James Gulliver Hancock is an Australian artist who came to New York City and promptly fell in love with the diversity and visual richness of its architecture. He’s made it his life’s work to illustrate every metro building he’s set eyes on, and the results can be enjoyed in his just-released book, All the Buildings in New York: That I’ve Drawn So Far.

I became aware of it at Brain Pickings, an online compendium of “interestingness” curated by the journalist Maria Popova. She chose a number of Hancock’s illustrations to decorate the post, and one of them, the depiction of “The Heywood” at 263 Ninth Avenue, looked familiar the instant I glanced at it.

A little Googling helped me to recall it as the former home of a firm that many other members of the graphics industry in the metro area also will remember well: Tanagraphics, later TanaSeybert, a company I visited many times on editorial assignments as well as on field trips for my classes at NYU.

Ideally situated to serve the metro market from its multi-story location on Ninth Avenue between 25th and 26th Streets, Tanagraphics was for many years one of the region’s foremost providers of graphic reproduction services. Its 2004 merger with the Seybert Nicholas Printing Group formed what was then said to be the largest privately held print management company in New York City.

The following year, TanaSeybert decided to consolidate operations at a 140,000-sq.-ft. plant it purchased at 525 West 52nd Street. Alas, the new home was not destined to be a permanent one, as the decline of the metro print market and other factors forced TanaSeybert into Chapter 11 in 2009. Shortly afterwards, the company was acquired by Unimac Graphics and relocated to Unimac’s facility in Carlstadt, NJ.

After Tanagraphics moved out of 263 Ninth Avenue, the building underwent the same transformation that has deprived New York City of so much else of its former manufacturing space: conversion to residential condominiums.

The Heywood now comprises 50 high-end loft residences with 12.5′ ceilings, 8′ windows, and views to die for. Christine Quinn, City Council president and mayoral candidate, lives at The Heywood with her partner. Living spaces in what used to be Tanagraphics production areas sell for seven figures—more money than many small graphics firms in the metro area see as revenue in a year.

Do the current residents of The Heywood hear the ghostly rumble of long-silenced offset presses while inhaling phantom vapors of litho ink and hot-melt glue? For their sake, we hope not. But for those of us who pass by 263 Ninth Avenue with memories of what the building used to house, the associations with print will always be there. Our thanks to Mr. Hancock for reawakening them.

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Ursula Burns of Xerox to Be Honored with NYU’s Prism Award on June 13

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Ursula Burns, chairman and chief executive officer of Xerox, will receive the 2013 Prism Award from the NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies (NYU-SCPS) Graphic Communications Management and Technology (GCMT) M.A. program on June 13.

Presented annually, the Prism Award recognizes distinguished leadership in the graphic communications media industry. The 2013 Prism Award will be presented to Burns on Thursday, June 13, 2013 during the 27th Annual Prism Award Luncheon, which will be held at Gotham Hall in New York City. The event is a major networking opportunity for graphic communications professionals and is the most heavily attended gathering of its type for the industry in the New York metro area.

“I am grateful for the honor,” said Burns, who is a graduate of the Polytechnic Institute of NYU. “This award reminds me of our obligation to the next generation of graphic communications professionals, and I share the enthusiasm for an industry that has seen much change, and for the possibilities yet to come.”

The net proceeds of the Prism Award Luncheon help to fund student scholarships as well as student and program support for the NYU-SCPS GCMT graduate program, which prepares the next generation of media communications industry leaders. Since its inception, the Prism Award Luncheon has raised millions of dollars for scholarships for students in the GCMT program.

Previous NYU Prism Award recipients include Steve Forbes, chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes Media LLC; Thomas J. Quinlan III, president and chief executive officer of RR Donnelley; Vyomesh (VJ) Joshi, former executive vice president, HP’s Imaging and Printing Group; Cathleen Black, former chairman of Hearst Magazines; Antonio M. Perez, president and CEO of Eastman Kodak Company; Anne M. Mulcahy, former chairperson and CEO of Xerox Corporation; and Janet L. Robinson, president and chief executive officer of The New York Times.

Guy Gecht, CEO of EFI, is this year’s Prism Luncheon chair. The event’s Advisory Board co-chairs are Martin Maloney, chairman of Broadford & Maloney, Inc., and Kathy Presto, vice president, strategic sourcing, of Williams Lea North America. Serving as co-chairs of the Prism Committee are Laura C. Reid, vice president of production at Hearst Magazines, and William “Buzz” Apostol, vice president, sales, Americas at X-Rite/Pantone Inc.

The June 13 ceremonies also will include the presentation of a student award to a distinguished graduate of the M.A. program in Graphic Communications Management and Technology.

Gotham Hall is located at 1356 Broadway (36th Street) in Manhattan. Tickets for the Prism Award Luncheon are priced from $750 per person to $6,000 for a sponsor’s table of eight and $10,000 for a co-chairmanship (which includes a dais seat as well as a table of eight).

Tables, ticket reservations, and additional information are available through the NYU-SCPS Office of Development. Contact Melissa Malebranche at 212-998-6950, by fax at 212-995-3663, or by e-mail at melissa.malebranche@nyu.edu. More information about the Prism Award Luncheon and Scholarship is available here.

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