Falit Pandya – Print Vision’s visionary

“Our calendars are our canvas in terms of our conceptual and technological abilities,” says Falit Pandya, director, Print Vision. “I have always loved working on these calendars and we do spend a lot of time ideating the concepts and themes that we select for each year.” For 2021-2022, Print Vision has opted for the theme Beyond, which will understand life and explore it both on earth and beyond.

18 Aug 2021 | By PrintWeek Team

Falit Pandya, director, Print Vision

Pandya says a lot of effort has been put in on the 13 sheets to understand the various design elements on each page and then selecting an appropriate effect for that element. “It does become tricky to maintain a uniform look and feel when you start involving too many special effects, but that’s the fun part and also what makes each page unique,” he says. “Unlike previous years, where we printed on cloth or used speciality inks, we are sticking with more traditional media choices and focused more on the theme and the digital integration.”

There are several different types of value additions done in the calendar such as foiling, screen printing and embossing. This time, Print Vision has made use of manual fabrication.

“Out of all the pages, my favourite is ‘May – We Search Within To Discover What Lies Beyond...’ The combined effect of emboss UV, screen-printed silver and process blue foil on velvet lamination is absolutely stunning. The geometric pattern of UV, which is overlaid on the foil, provides a different visual effect under various lighting conditions and that’s very exciting,” he explains.

Describing the calendar’s production process, Pandya says that everything we use has a real-life application and it’s got to be relatable. For example, conventional art cards, FBB boards, textured paper and even plastics have been used in the calendar.

“All of these media are what we use and suggest to customers for different products and applications. The key is to allow the customer to look at these pages and imagine the effects on their jobs,” he adds.

Through this calendar, Print Vision has created something innovative – merged physical and digital reality. What was the motivation? “To do justice to the theme,” says Pandya. “Print alone wasn’t enough because of the audiovisual required to convey the whole story. I wanted to give an experience that would engulf the viewer from all their senses, and Augmented Reality (AR) was the only method, which allowed me to do it, thus we went ahead with it.”

For this, Pandya introduced the Beyond Calendar app. So what does it do? Pandya: “Beyond Calendar app is an interface that connects the printed calendar to a subsequent digital media. Each page has a story that’s conveyed through a multimedia experience and that’s what you see when you scan the image via the app.”

The app has been online for about six months now. Pandya says the company is still working on improving our AR platform, especially towards better image recognition over different printed surfaces. “We are exploring partnering with companies in different industries to initiate a pilot programme in order to collect more data and feedback,” he adds.

For making the calendar more intuitive, Print Vision spent time exploring several options before developing its own AR platform. “Last year, due to lockdown and the consequent slow down in the business, we found the time to explore the possibility of developing the platform with our IT partners, and we started from there,” he adds.

Pandya admits that the development process was very slow initially. “We had to go through several iterations of print and the app itself in order to make it work,” he says. “However, we did realise the benefit of developing the platform ourselves as we gained the insights on how it works, its limitations and benefits.”

“Will a traditional print company be relevant in the future? Will customers in the future continue to ask us for the same solution that we offer them today? I don’t know, but what I do know is that providing new tools to your customers, which help them achieve their targets, always pays in the long run. Print Vision’s AR platform is a tool that we have created just for that,” Pandya explains.

Explaining the integration of AR to the calendar, Pandya says: “AR has multiple things going for it. First, it’s an emerging tool in marketing and sales strategies, which wants to give customers a unique experience. Second, both mobile devices and data are powerful enough that the customer can tap into these experiences easily, increasing the accessibility of the AR campaign.

“Our primary aim was to understand AR, use it with the calendar to enhance the experience of the calendar and then take this knowledge to the customers, who can consider AR for their upcoming marketing campaigns.”

Meanwhile, Pandya reveals that the company has not yet started monetising the platform. However, he says his company would be targeting some markets with this technology at its disposal.

According to Pandya, the talk about “changing with time” is very clichéd. “I think the mantra to growth is very simple –listen to your customers, and provide them with a solution.”

Earlier the solution was print, but that’s not enough anymore, Pandya believes. “So we have to be ready to take it further and in different directions. AR offers the solution of providing multimedia engagement by integrating it with traditional print mediums and that I believe is a great advantage for us,” he concludes.

Print Vision calendar: 2021-22

Cover - 300 gsm GSM art card / matt lamination / spot emboss | UV / pop-up pasting of the astronaut

April - 300 gsm FBB board with MetPET lamination / five-colour printing with online Dripp

May - 300 GSM art card / velvette lamination / spot emboss UV / spot UV / foiling / screen printing

June - 280 GSM Textured Paper / four-colour Printing With Online Satin Coating / Foiling / Embossing

July - 280 GSM textured paper / four-colour printing with online satin coating / foiling / pop-up pasting of book

August - 300 gsm GSM art card / matt lamination / spot emboss UV / rotating compass hands

September - 300 gsm FBB board with MetPET lamination / five-colour printing with online dripp

October - Two-part page. Sheet A - 150-micron transparent plastic sheet with four-colour printing on the front side / back side silver printing. Sheet B - 300 GSM art card / four-colour printing /flood UV