On-Demand – Page 2 – Imaging Specialists, Inc.

ISI’s latest project is a 280-page book titled Descendants of William Black & Nancy Allison. It is a family history of the Black family here in Alleghany County and our largest book-design project to date. The book features over 100 photographs, letters and information on William and Nancy’s family, gathered by Lorene Sturgill of Piney Creek, North Carolina.

The book is a marriage of experience and new technology. We input the entire family history, scanned and optimized the photographs, built an index of descendants, and, after the initial order, plan to print the casebound books on-demand.

Cover design by Imaging Specialists, Inc. for the Descendants of William Black and Nancy Allison — Cover design by Imaging Specialists, Inc. for Descendants of William Black and Nancy Allison

You may or may not know we’re not new to book printing. Imaging Specialists has a long history in books, from humble phone directories at R.R. Donnelley in Portland Oregon, to high-end, leather bound, Easton Books at Nicholstone in Nashville, Tennessee, we’ve shot more book pages than most shops our size.

Thousands of titles passed through our lenses during our years in Greensboro.

We’re not even new at family histories, either. For years we shot pages to imposition for Craftsman, Delmar, Edwards & Broughton, and other North Carolina printers on our projection step-and-repeat systems. Sometimes it was the only way to copy them.

It’s this experience that helps us to anticipate many problems before they arise. This is the first of several titles we will be publishing this year.

Interested in producing your own book? You don’t have to go to the Triangle or even the Triad. Give us a call to find out how easy it can be.

The Descendants of William Black & Nancy Allison will be available later this month.

Purchase your copy at The Sparta Store.

Recently, Roy Ackland and David Weatherly from Roy’s Folks at WGHP FOX8 in the Piedmont-Triad honored us with a visit. We had sent out a press release on our book Family Photos- Eli Hamilton Halsey and Lillian Blanche Smith and they were looking for a day trip to escape the hot weather, so they came to Sparta.

Kingsport Press

We were able to talk about the book, and our history in the printing industry. My dad told about his career in printing- in Roanoke, Bristol and in the photographic department at Kingsport Press. He eventually went to work for Opti-Copy, Inc. in Kansas City, traveling all over the world installing equipment and working with dealers. I went to work with Opti after school and traveled extensively in installation and service of the step-and-repeat cameras we built.

Opti-Copy, Inc. in Lenexa, Kansas in the eighties.

When the Japanese company, Polychrome, bought the company, Dad and I moved to Greensboro where he co-founded Imaging Specialists, Inc. with partner, Gerry Foss. ISI was a prepress trade shop supplying printers with one piece, plate-ready film. We produced film for books, publications, ads, and labels and worked with offset, roto-gravure, flexo and even silk screeners.

Since we had contacts at printing companies across the country, we were well positioned for farm-out and overflow work. My brother, Alan, (also an ex Opti-Copy employee) and I redesigned the drive systems on our cameras and successfully marketed that idea and imposition software to other Opti owners. Eventually, we were able to buy out Mr. Foss’ half of the business and the company was truly then a “Mom & Pop” organization. My mother, Eloise, had been working with us since we started in Greensboro and my wife, Sharon, had joined us in 1994.

dad1 — Ron Halsey with one-piece, plate-ready, final film, Imaging Specialists' main output for years.

Desktop publishing and the digital revolution finally killed our part of the prepress work flow and Dad decided to retire in 2000. We knew we had to reinvent ourselves, so Sharon and I also moved the business to the mountains in 2003.

Our experience in graphics and printing has helped us in the digital age. We run Adobe Creative Suite on Mac and PC platforms. We have expanded into the internet and now build and host websites. Our daughter, Claire, has joined us, now, and handles the web work.

We think our prepress experience coupled with on-demand printing makes a perfect fit. We offer services that include page layout and design, photo optimization, illustration, and e-commerce and marketing websites.

These turn-key book assembly services we perform are much like the days when we would accept a stack of pages (literally, a basket-case) correct and assemble them into what the printer needed to produce a book. And with on-demand, self-publishing is very reasonable. Contact us if you have an idea or a book that you want to discuss.

And check out our story on television, next week. Thanks Roy and David. I can’t think of a better way to wrap up Dad’s birthday present.

Tag: On-Demand

Black Family History Coming Soon!

Roy’s Folks to Feature ISI’s Folks!