A Stitch In Time

However, Festa says there are some great new ideas to look out for, particularly when it comes to binding variable data output.

"Right now we're looking into selective binding, or demographic binding—producing a book or a magazine to do target marketing," he reveals.

He explains that just as a digital printer can output pages with varying content, he expects to see a proliferation of saddle stitchers that up the ante by producing books with varying pages. The advertising industry, he says, will be the key target for such a machine.