Toronto Hosts Clemson GC for the iarigai Conference

September 4, 2016

Written by: Zachary Richardson

In the beginning of the semester, a group of students lead by Drs. Liam O’Hara and Nona Woolbright went to the iarigai research conference in Toronto, Canada, August 24–27. Iarigai is The International Association of Research Organizations for the Information, Media and Graphic Arts Industries. This international conference featured many of the world’s leading researchers in the field of graphic communications, and was hosted by Ryerson University.

Our group was to go and observe the lectures and gain more knowledge in regards to the fields of research in our industry. The trip to the conference was relatively smooth consisting of two flights starting at 6 a.m. This early departure allowed us to explore the city for the day before the opening reception that evening. This social gathering allowed the researchers and attendees to be introduced, network and discuss topics. The reception was located at Ryerson University’s historic ice rink, one of the first hockey rinks to ever be built.

The first day of the conference focused solely on the research papers submitted to the iarigai committee for the past year. The presentations were opened by a keynote presentation by Sappi of America’s Daniel Dejin. He gave a presentation of the importance of human touch in printed production and why print is more prevalent than ever due to the combined effort of print and digital media. Several presentations were focused around the topic of printed electronics—the most notable consisted of using a hydrophilic ink to detect the amount of glucose contained in a liquid. Another presentation, which was recognized at the best paper presented at iarigai, focused on security printing and using a more extreme microcell pattern to create a “fingerprint” that only the producer of the original package can create. Overall the presentations were very technical and interesting, but difficult to follow if you did not study the topics they were discussing.

The presentations ended at 5pm and we were free to find dinner for ourselves. We decided on a small taco shop in the downtown district of Toronto. Good food and good fun. The next day of the conference was billed as “Industry Day”. This was a more general educational experience rather than strictly academic research. They believe that educating researchers in what the industry is doing and desires can help create new projects and funding for those projects from industry leaders. The presentations on Friday came from a multitude of different areas in our fields from marketing to production and even a recap of drupa 2016.

Also on Friday we had the opportunity to tour Ryerson’s GC facilities. It was really interesting to see another top-tier Graphics program. Being located in downtown Toronto, Ryerson has limited space to house their program, despite a large student body. Clemson is fortunate to have the space to hold such a diversity of equipment for students.

With the presentations concluded, the iarigai conference closed with a dinner to celebrate the accomplishments of the meeting. The dinner consisted of mostly small chat and discussions on research and what the future of the iarigai will consist of. After the dinner we prepared for our flight home the next day. This has been a wonderful experience to experience iarigai and the city of Toronto—I recommend that if students have the opportunity to go on trips such as these they should take advantage.