Beyond CMYK: Xerox’s Taktisphere Live Event Turns Award-Winning Print Into a Sales Playbook

Xerox Best of the Best winners Zoltán Kanovits and José Dapino used a live unboxing to show how fifth- and sixth-color printing can move printers away from price competition and toward premium, tactile experiences.

The limitations of a webcam became part of the story during the July 14 Taktisphere Live. As the hosts tilted metallic calendars, black-on-black invitations and fluorescent printed cards toward their cameras, they repeatedly offered the same caveat: the screen could not capture what the pieces did in the hand.

That gap between seeing and experiencing print was precisely the point of the event, “Xerox’s Best of the Best Spill the Beans on 5th and 6th Color Magic.” Sponsored by Xerox and hosted by Taktiful, the hourlong session featured Zoltán Kanovits of Kanovits Print Atelier in Slovakia and José Dapino of Omega Printmaster in Uruguay. Taktiful Chief Experience Officer Eric Vessels and Xerox’s Kelly Leahy joined the discussion and handled much of the live unboxing.

The program drew 116 registrations, which Taktiful’s CEO Kevin Abergel described as a record for Taktisphere Live. But the session’s most significant measure was not attendance. It was the clarity with which two award-winning printers reframed specialty color from a press feature into a commercial strategy.

Dapino established that theme early. Omega’s focus, he said, is no longer simply high-volume production, but “high-value printing.” The quantity may be lower, he added, but the quality and impact are higher. Kanovits described a similar approach: “We don’t simply print products. We create experiences, creativity and value.” What customers are really buying, he said, is the emotional reaction.

A sample kit that sells without a sales pitch

The first box opened contained Omega Printmaster’s self-promotional sample kit. Its packaging combined CMYK with silver and fluorescent pink, creating movement as the silver changed under the light. Inside was a growing collection of trading-card-sized samples, each demonstrating a different substrate, specialty-color combination or finishing technique.

The cards were not merely visual swatches. Production notes on the reverse explained how each piece was made, including the stock, lamination and finishing processes. One card prompted an immediate tactile response from the hosts, who compared its soft-touch surface to the skin of a peach.

Dapino said the modular format allows Omega to add a new card whenever the team develops another combination. The kit serves two audiences at once: buyers can imagine higher-value applications, while designers can see how specialty colors and finishing choices behave in production.

Abergel called it one of the best embellishment sales kits he had seen. The reason was straightforward: it did not ask a customer to become excited about toner. It translated the technology into applications, outcomes and ideas. The audience’s reaction reinforced the lesson, with requests for sample kits quickly filling the live chat.

Fluorescent pink emerged as Omega’s most strategically important specialty color. Dapino explained that the value is not limited to printing pink itself. Blended into an extended-gamut workflow, it can intensify oranges, reds, purples and other colors that conventional CMYK often struggles to reproduce with the vibrancy seen on an RGB screen.

That capability was demonstrated in a brightly colored desk calendar and later in a vivid orange product label. Dapino described pink as a way to move printed output closer to the customer’s digital expectation.

“When you sell this, you don’t sell pink,” he said of the orange label. “You sell the orange.”

A company history becomes a business-development tool

Kelly Leahy then opened Kanovits Print Atelier’s 20th-anniversary book, a substantial, lay-flat volume that paired portraits of the company’s employees with an inventory of premium-print techniques. The book incorporated black stocks, gold and white specialty colors, laser engraving, varied textures and carefully selected papers. When opened, its format expanded to reveal full portrait-oriented A4 spreads.

The project began as a celebration of the company’s history, Kanovits said, but evolved during the design process. Each spread became a demonstration of a different creative possibility, turning the book into a compact portfolio of the studio’s capabilities. The project later earned the 2025 Best of Show honor in Xerox’s Best of the Best Awards for Print.

More important than the trophy, Kanovits said, was the work the book generated. It tells the company’s story, builds trust and gives sales conversations an immediate focal point.

“It has probably generated more business than most customer jobs,” he said.

What started as self-promotion became one of the company’s strongest business-development tools.

A second Kanovits showpiece, a wall calendar produced in 2021, extended that principle. The calendar combined laser cutting and engraving with transparent sheets, mirror-silver papers, double hits of white, metallic effects and multilayer printing that created raised, touchable surfaces. Each month demonstrated a different embellishment technique.

After the company posted the calendar on LinkedIn and offered it as a demonstration piece, requests arrived from 35 countries. For a studio based in Slovakia, Kanovits said, the project generated an unexpectedly global response. The most common reaction from recipients was also the simplest: “I didn’t know digital print could do this.”

Pictures alone, he added, are rarely sufficient. The customer has to tilt the stock, catch the reflection, feel the relief and compare the surfaces. That physical discovery is why samples remain central to the sale.

From secret invitations to premium labels

The unboxing also moved from self-promotional pieces to client work. For a private Porsche art-and-wine event, Kanovits produced a three-layer invitation using a black-white-black triplex construction. Double white created the primary image, while clear toner added nearly hidden typography to the dark surface.

The wording became visible only as the invitation moved through the light, aligning the production technique with the secrecy of the event itself.

Dapino showed a separate Porsche folder built around a deep black laminated surface and clear toner. The two examples prompted a technical discussion about when to use black paper and when to print or laminate a black surface. The decision, both printers said, depends on the design, the need for white elements, the desired density of the black and the finishing processes that follow.

Other work underscored the range of the platform. Omega displayed commercial pieces combining silver with UV varnish and labels whose intense orange relied on fluorescent pink for gamut expansion. Kanovits presented a minimalist Venera Regalia catalog with a laser-cut cover, digital printing, foil and spot UV—a project Xerox recognized with its 2025 publishing award.

Although the applications varied, the production logic was consistent: color, substrate and finishing were treated as one design system rather than separate add-ons.

Sell the reaction, not the ink

The final portion of the event shifted from production to selling. For printers accustomed to leading with equipment specifications, Kanovits offered a deliberately restrained method.

“Don’t explain too much,” he said. “Hand over the sample and then stay quiet, and let curiosity do the selling.”

Customers do not wake up wanting a specialty dry ink, he said. They want more customers, stronger response rates and better first impressions. Luxury brands and marketing agencies often understand that link immediately, but the same logic applies in wine, cosmetics, automotive, hospitality, premium packaging and professional services.

Dapino emphasized education. Specialty printing remains new to many buyers and designers, and a printer must first understand the client’s problem before recommending a color or finishing effect.

Social media helps create demand because it is visual, he said. Customers see a striking application and ask Omega to produce something with the same impact. Still, Dapino acknowledged the tension between discussing the technology he loves and keeping the conversation focused on the client’s brand.

Pricing remains the harder part. Kanovits said he avoids comparing an experience-driven piece with ordinary, everyday printing. Simple jobs may receive a straightforward surcharge for specialty colors, while more ambitious projects command a higher price because the printer is helping create the customer experience itself.

Dapino described the challenge of quoting an enhanced orange with fluorescent pink, only to have a buyer seek a cheaper CMYK bid elsewhere. With Omega operating Uruguay’s first and only Xerox Iridesse, he said, those comparisons can become “bananas with potatoes”—two fundamentally different products presented as though they were interchangeable.

The answer from both printers was not to retreat to commodity pricing, but to make the distinction visible. Kanovits noted that people sometimes spend more time touching a sample than reading it.

“That always makes me smile,” he said, “because that is exactly what print should do.”

Their closing advice distilled the hour. Kanovits urged printers not to wait for customers to request unfamiliar capabilities.

“Customers rarely ask for something they have never seen before,” he said. “Sometimes we need to show them the future first.”

Dapino delivered the counterpart: “We don’t sell ink. Sell differentiation, value and experience.”

Kanovits added the final line of the session’s unofficial playbook: “Don’t compete on price. Compete on the experience.”

For an event built around fifth and sixth colors, the lasting message had little to do with counting inks. The competitive advantage begins when printers stop treating embellishment as an optional effect and start using it to make a brand more memorable, a sales conversation more tangible and print itself harder to ignore.