Photo products
Guest Author: Richard Askam, Founder of Print Island
Every industry needs storytellers, and few tell the story of personalization better than Richard Askam. The visionary behind Print Island and a driving force behind campaigns like “Share a Coke,” Richard has helped shape how brands connect with people in more personal, meaningful ways.
As one of Mediaclip’s personalization ambassador, follow Richard on our blog as he will share his insights, ideas, and inspiration to help bridge creativity, technology, and personalization.
I had the joy of being in beautiful Slovenia last week for Dscoop Edge, another great conference for the HP community. As always, it was great to catch up with old friends after a long gap since the last EMEA event.
I always approach these events with a simple focus: what’s the one thing that will stand out in my mind once the plane takes off to bring me home? This time, it was this…
Print on demand has always promised flexibility: no minimum runs, no warehoused stock, and no waste. But for years, the reality often fell short of the pitch. Manual file checks, one-off press setups, and disconnected order systems meant “on demand” often still translated to “next week, if we’re lucky.” Today, however, automation is finally closing that gap and reshaping what print businesses can credibly offer their customers.
The biggest shift is in workflow automation. Where a print run once required a human to receive an order, check artwork, prepare files, queue the job, and manually trigger the press, integrated systems now handle that entire chain automatically. An order placed on a website at 11pm can be validated, imposed, and queued for production before anyone arrives at the workshop the next morning.
This is especially important for personalised products, the kind of output businesses like photobook publishers or custom sports merchandise brands rely on. Every order is technically unique, and automation is what makes that viable at scale. It transforms what would once have been a bespoke, labour-intensive job into a repeatable, software-driven process.
Prepress used to be where bottlenecks lived. Files arrived in the wrong colour space, bleeds were missing, or resolution was too low. Today, automated preflight tools catch these issues instantly, often correcting them without operator intervention.
Variable data printing, where each printed piece can carry unique text, images, or even layout based on customer input, has also become far more reliable. Software now validates every variable field before it reaches the press.
What has really changed isn’t a single technology, but the connectivity between systems. Web-to-print platforms now talk directly to MIS (management information systems), which connect directly to the press, which then feeds back updates on stock, shipping, and customer notifications. A customer’s personalisation choices can now flow straight through to a finished, packaged product without manual re-keying at any stage.
This level of integration allows smaller print-on-demand operators to compete credibly with far larger, traditionally resourced competitors.
The commercial upside is significant. Lower error rates mean less wasted stock and fewer reprints. Faster turnaround improves customer experience and enables competition on speed rather than just price. And because automated systems scale far more easily than manual ones, businesses can absorb seasonal spikes, such as a surge in personalised gift orders before Christmas, without needing to rapidly increase staffing or turn away business.
There is also a quieter but powerful benefit: data capture. Every automated order leaves a digital trail. Print businesses that use this data effectively can better understand demand patterns, personalisation preferences, and seasonal trends that were previously invisible in manual, paper-based workflows.
None of this removes the human role in print. Creative decisions, customer relationships, and quality judgement on genuinely novel jobs still require people. What automation removes is the repetitive, error-prone manual work that used to sit between an order and a finished product, freeing teams to focus on higher-value tasks.
The direction of travel is clear: print operations are becoming less like traditional manufacturing and more like software-driven businesses that happen to produce physical objects. As AI-assisted quality checking and predictive production planning continue to mature, the gap between “ordered” and “delivered” will keep shrinking.
For print-on-demand businesses, the winners will be those who treat automation not as a cost-cutting tool, but as the foundation of their entire customer proposition.
Dscoop has always been a brilliant event to catch up with friends and industry peers, and this year those conversations were dominated by this topic. So, as I sit here on the plane on my way home, I can’t help wishing that the airport experience as a traveller could be just as automated.
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