TORONTO—Ryerson University's School of Graphic Communications Management (GCM) held a special ribbon-cutting event recently to recognize donations of hardware and software from Esko to the school.

"Students in the School of Graphic Communications Management will benefit tremendously from this strengthening of our partnership with Esko," said Ian Baitz, Chair of the School of Graphic Communications Management. "This major donation will allow our 500 GCM students to learn Esko's industry-leading packaging design and prepress systems. We are thrilled to begin using Esko job management and automation modules, including tools such as DeskPack and ArtiosCAD. Our new Esko CDI Spark imagesetter will become a very important piece of equipment in our new prepress flexography workflow."


From left is Ian Baitz, GCM chair; Ronald Larry, VP software business development for Esko; Adam Kahan, VP university advancement for Ryerson

GCM students, faculty and staff will be using the Esko applications, which have been installed and incorporated into the curriculum. Students will use the workflow for first and third year premedia courses that focus on packaging and layout.

A portion of the donation was new equipment for the GCM premedia platemaking lab for flexographic platemaking. The Esko CDI Spark flexo has been installed to make plates for flexography, which will help students to learn and practice platemaking processes using the Esko workflow system.

All third year students will produce flexo plates on the new CDI. Baitz said that previously, the school relied on companies in the Toronto area to make the plates.


Unveiling of the newly-dedicated Esko Premedia Wing during ceremony

"Esko is very active in the Toronto packaging market and it's seldom that we have a customer or client who isn't connected to Ryerson University in some way," said Larry Moore, Esko's director of software services in North America. "Considering this, and the fact that Ryerson's School of Graphic Communications Management is a leader in educating those in the packaging industry, donating this gift to Ryerson was a natural choice for us."

The release notes the gift also brings the university to $128 million of its $200-million goal for its Make Your Mark Campaign to fuel teaching and research innovation.