I Want That Wednesdays #5

Oh precious CMYK, I still love you, but I think we should see other colors.

This week I want something that I am pretty sure does not yet exist but that I think, based on my, ahem, expansive understanding of print engineering,* is entirely do-able.

I want an inkjet printer that prints spot colors. At home. I want to print in white ink on black paper. In gold on silver. And I am willing to make some concessions in return.

See, my understanding is that opaque white and metallic inks have fairly large particle sizes, particles which will clog up the sprayer nozzles on your home inkjet. But isn't that just because your personal inkjet has become so advanced that it can print like 1440x1440? Which, for the record is more than 2 million dots per square inch.

So what if people like me were willing to sacrifice photographic dpi for the flexibility of printing in opaque pigmet inks, dare I say, in Pantone spot colors? I'd happily accept something more like 144-300 dpi. I think with the evaporation of the gocco as a home printing alternative there is a small but potentially mighty market out there for an alternative to screenprinting and letterpress. Of course, it would get cost prohibitive to offer every color in the Pantone spectrum as a dedicated spot color cartridge. But I'd be happy with 24 or so colors!

Who's with me?!?

*I grew up in a print shop when xerography was the apex of print technology. Oh. And ten years ago I wrote a buying guide to commercial printing services for small business owners for my job at a now-defunct tech boom startup. That makes me an expert, right?