Beachbody – COLOR TUNER
An Overview of CGS ORIS Color Management at Beachbody’s In-Plant Operations | Los Angeles, CA
California-based Beachbody is a rapidly growing developer of popular in-home fitness and exercise programs. Founded in 1998, the company offers DVD-based instruction programs that cover a wide range of health, strength building, and weight loss needs—from Tai Chi to cardiovascular workouts to muscle building and toning.
Each Beachbody package consists of multiple components—the DVDs themselves, fitness guides, nutrition plans, workout calendars, and the like. Branded nutritional supplements are also available. Each component’s printed appearance is designed around the program’s theme. Because each program is sold online, the overall design has to work effectively in both print and Web environments. With such a variety of programs and components—each with its own unique brand identity—the production process is demanding. To reduce production and inventory costs, printing and package assembly are highly automated and outsourced. However, each brand’s visual quality—particularly color—is also a critical factor.
Color Fitness
Early on, Beachbody’s well-designed packages resonated with customers, who would often progress to additional programs and upgrades. The themes’ color designs—reflected in various printed pieces—were part of the positive experience. Prepress manager (and color retouch expert) Craig Schriber found that well-executed color had a positive effect on package popularity. As the company grew, however, maintaining color quality became a challenge. Schriber’s department went from five to 54 people in only four years—as the direct result of Beachbody’s success with existing packages and rapidly adding new ones. With each new brand, the demand for peak color performance increased accordingly.
CGS ORIS technology has earned back the initial investment many times over, turning what used to be a tedious manual process into a smooth, automatic one.
CRAIG SCHRIBER, BEACHBODY
The CGS ORIS Workout
With company support, Schriber began exploring in-house proofing, using ORIS COLOR TUNER—which he had successfully used in the past—and an existing Epson inkjet printer. Working with CGS ORIS to optimize the device, he began producing color-accurate internal proofs, initially saving about $50,000 in costs.
Over the three-year period of Beachbody’s rapid growth, Schriber’s department expanded the use of CGS ORIS technology, strategically acquiring new Epson inkjet printers, and replacing outside vendor proofs with a robust, efficient COLOR TUNER workflow. Jobs sent to offshore printers included contract CGS ORIS proofs, creating a notable improvement in print color quality and consistency.
The new Epson proofing devices each have an internal spectrophotometer, which is used by ORIS CERTIFIED to insure optimum color performance and consistency. Schriber’s department appreciated the efficiency of in-line quality control, given the fact that each Beachbody package includes multiple (and often multi-page) printed pieces— each with up to three proofs of each page.
According to Schriber, the COLOR TUNER system was able to cope with the proofing bottleneck admirably—dramatically reducing proofing costs and maintaining critical brand color requirements.
Staying In Shape
Going forward, Beachbody has used other CGS ORIS technology to enhance its color production supply chain. By using ORIS solutions, Beachbody is able to send PRESS MATCHER optimized digital files—along with COLOR TUNER inkjet contract proofs—to ensure precise color matching, even among widely differing presses, press conditions, and locations.
Schriber observed that CGS ORIS technology has earned back the initial investment many times over, turning what used to be a tedious manual process into a smooth, automatic one. The close color match demanded by Beachbody’s creative teams is consistently met—as evidenced by the scarcity of press checks. Clearly, the CGS ORIS approach has resulted in a dramatic and sustainable level of “color fitness” for Beachbody. Like its exercise programs, CGS ORIS has helped the company’s global printing operation to become leaner, more muscular, and certainly better looking—at an affordable price!