Database text or elements can be added to images with Photoshop-like effects to create variable data pictures.These days, personalization is pretty common.
From direct mail with a personal greeting (instead of "Dear Customer") to Amazon.com offering tailored product recommendations, publishers and marketers are increasingly customizing print, e-mail and Web communications.
What's uncommon is the personalization of scores of images; where a name or logo looks like it is part of an actual photograph. However, that may be about to change.
"DreamType is a way to get the most out of variable data through something we call variable data imaging," Brian Gullette, president and self-described "chief bottle washer" of the months-old, New York-based company, said.
"You can actually have a library of corporate logos and make them all appear on a coffee mug in a photograph," Gullette said, and the software will "wrap the logo around the mug using a cylinder wrap."
Click here to read more about personalization in publishing.
Gullette said publishers use the DreamType service to grab attention, be it in e-mails, Web pages, printed documents or on cell phones.
He said his service allows publishers to push the creative envelope to "make truly emotionally engaging pieces."
"If people see their name rendered in water or something like that…it's kind of a visceral reaction. The brain goes, 'Whoa, that's my name!' and forces your eye to really pay attention to the piece." Gullette said.
Dynamic Imaging is the Latest Wave
As publishers and marketers look for imaginative ways to deliver relevant information, a growing number are turning to one-to-one marketing methods. For print publishers, VDP (Variable Data Printing) allows them to produce more effective and profitable communications by varying the text, graphics and even the layout for an individual consumer.
While full-color variable-image jobs were introduced more than a decade ago (where static images are swapped), dynamic imaging is very new, with few analogous offerings.
DirectSmile, of Berlin, offers image personalization and direct mailing services similar to DreamType's.
Adobe Graphics Server offers bulk editing capabilities for replacing text within Photoshop and Illustrator graphics.
ImageMagick is a bitmap image editing suite with rudimentary dynamic image personalization functionality. John Cristy, president of ImageMagick Studio LLC, and primary designer, author and maintainer of ImageMagick, e-mailed that the free software has millions of users and is included as part of the operating system of most non-Windows operating systems.
DreamType is offered as a service. Gullette said the company elected to not saddle publishers with the cost and complexity of installing hardware and software and to reduce the overall complexities of achieving variable data imaging.
DreamType Handles the Heavy Lifting
Gullette said a typical workflow can start with any stock photo, background, glyph or basically any image.
The designer, referencing the DreamType design guide, prepares the image using "photographic glyphs or rasterized vector fonts that appear in the photograph with perspective and blur and wrapping and all those other effects that you can do in Photoshop."
They then send the Photoshop file, along with test images that show the effects they are trying to achieve.
DreamType then converts the Photoshop document into its proprietary XML-based file format.
"Essentially, we are building an XML job from your Photoshop [file]," Gullette said. "It is like building your own font file."
"Any weird transforms you can do in Photoshop, we can translate that to something our engine will do just as easily without all the overhead."
Quark will improve variable data printing capabilities in Version 7.0. Click here to read more.
While it was hard to pin Gullette down on costs, he suggested that those who want to test the waters license one of the 20 to 25 existing templates to reduce setup costs.
He also talked about a $1,000 promotion DreamType is offering to digital printers who want to advertise and offer this value-added service with a cross-media campaign (postcard, Web and e-mail).
"We'll work with them on up to a couple thousand names if they want."
"In two or three years, this is probably going to be built into some big, mega-server farm you lease out like a utility," Gullette said. "We're just trying to get a jump on that and show how easy and cost effective it can be to do that right now.
"So instead of you having to become an expert in this or that software package or platform or whatever, we say design what you want right now; we'll take it to market tomorrow, and we'll do it at a price that is a single percentage point increase over your creative charge and a similar kind of charge on your impression charges."
