Page 60 - Print21 Jan-Feb 2020

Software
Wayne Robinson
Spicy Talks set platform for
Chili Smart Templates
Chili publish announced version 6.0 of its Chili publisher Smart Template software at the end of the year, promising turbo-charged speed, and mixed ink combining spot and process colours. The release was announced at its international conference Spicy Talks in Berlin, with Print21 editor Wayne Robinson there.
Speaking at the company’s annual user community SpicyTalks conference in Europe late last year, which focused on Smart Templates,
CEO Kevin Goeminne said that the company was driving forward with its mission to automate the document creation process, saying that typically 24 per cent of a company’s marketing budget was spent on manual labour, and the Chili software would take an axe to that through rules-based automation.
He said the company had developed what he called dynamic formulas – the concept similar to those used in Excel – which massively reduces the creation time for multiple versions of similar graphic layouts.
Chili believes that there is a significant amount of waste in
design creation, and says by creating automated production tools it will slash costs from the print price. Its rules-based software enables jobs that were previously manual-heavy to be completed in seconds, with no errors.
Goeminne said brand owners faced myriad shape and platform requirements for their marketing collateral, with brochures, posters, flyers, websites, emails and the like – but that the Chili publish software could auto fit all the elements of a design into appropriate locations
on any sized and shaped printed or digital space, saving huge amounts of time and money. Chief technical officer Ward De Langhes gave what he said was a typical example of a brand that is using Google Display Network, which requires 14 different sizes, and said there may be 15 different speakers for the promotion he had in mind – which meant more than 200 variants. With its rules-
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Web-to-coffin: Chili software enabling personalised coffins from LifeArt
based software, each document was automatically populated.
The SpicyTalks conference took place in Berlin as the city celebrated the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Chili said it wants
to tear down walls in production through automation, with Chili publisher essentially setting out to enable print businesses and brand owners to automate complex tasks via a front end or API, combining data with print for maximum impact and opportunity.
Some 200 printers, designers, developers, and brand owners attended the conference, including Australians Mike Grehan and Lynn White from LifeArt, the innovative business looking to personalise coffins through web-to-print design software.
Grehan, CEO of LifeArt said,
“We are just a few weeks away from launching design-your-own coffin graphics. The Chili publish software forms an integral part of the LifeArt solution.”
LifeArt will enable the general public to create and upload their own designs onto coffins. The challenge, or one of them, is in the size of the coffins – typically more than two metres in length – and the different shapes. The Chili Smart Templates are being used online to enable the non-professional to upload graphics
– maybe a photo, or a design – and place these onto
appropriate positions on the coffin.
Alan Dixon, CEO of Workflowz, which supplies Chili in Australia
and the UK, was also at the event,
to which a handful of leading trade press from around the world – including Print21 – were also invited.
The conference included a presentation from British printer Precision Marketing, which is using Chili publish software with both the UK Labour party and its own Property Connects platform; the Conservative party also used Chili for the recent UK election campaign. Gary Howard from Precision said, “They each get
three mailshots to all 27 million households, which they want to target as precisely as possible. Chili Smart Templates with Smart Data makes this possible.” He quipped that Chili could pull the plug on the whole UK election, which he said would probably come as a relief to the citizens.
Other presentations included Airbus, B-Post (the Belgian post service), Philips, and leading German print trade magazine Deutsche Drucker.
The world’s biggest offset press manufacturer Heidelberg was also presenting; it uses Chili Smart Templates for its web-to-pack business in China, where, it says,
40 per cent of the world’s packaging is based. Heidelberg’s web-to-pack business has a buyer choosing from different boxes, all of which are optimised to be printed on and folded. The buyer can then upload graphics to the box, and the same graphics to different sized and shaped boxes. This is where Smart Templates come in, automatically laying out the design elements in the appropriate locations.
60 Print21 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020