中文Fujifilm’s Innovation Division has announced summer and fall dates for its Aspire Designer Sessions, extending a free business development program designed to help graphic designers, press operators, and print shop owners extract more value from CMYK+ printing on the company’s Revoria Press platform. The next virtual session is scheduled for July 28, 2026, with a follow-up on October 14, 2026.
What CMYK+ Actually Means
CMYK+ refers to the ability to run specialty toner colors — including Pink, Green, Gold, Silver, White, and Clear — alongside standard process colors on Revoria presses configured for five- or six-color operation. This capability is built into several Revoria Press models, including the newly announced PC2120 as well as the PC1120S, EC2100S, and SC285S. But Fujifilm has found that many operators and designers have not yet incorporated these additional color stations into their regular production workflows.
The gap between capability and utilization is significant because CMYK+ represents one of the most accessible ways for commercial printers to add value without adding labor. A fifth or sixth color station can produce metallic effects, spot varnish, white underprint for dark or colored media, neon-like vibrancy with Pink, and textured clear coat effects — all without the setup time, tooling cost, and offline processing associated with traditional foil stamping, screen-printed spot varnish, or other embellishment techniques.
Three Audiences, One Program
Fujifilm has structured the Aspire Program around three distinct audiences, recognizing that CMYK+ adoption requires alignment across the entire production chain. For graphic designers, the program provides webinar training sessions covering file setup, blending techniques, and specialty color applications in Adobe InDesign and Illustrator, plus free downloadable resources including a CMYK+ Design Guide and pre-built metallic color swatch plug-ins. For press operators, Operator Quick Tips offer step-by-step guidance for adding CMYK+ embellishments directly at the Revoria Flow Print Server, including Pink and Green gamut enhancement, Pantone color matching, and Clear effect management. For business owners, the program delivers printed samples, CMYK+ Application Opportunity Briefs, and a toner estimation calculator to support job pricing and business development.
This three-audience approach reflects a practical understanding of how embellishment adoption actually happens in print businesses. A designer who knows how to specify a metallic gold element in InDesign is only valuable if the operator knows how to execute it on press, and both are only valuable if the owner knows how to price it profitably. By addressing all three constituencies simultaneously, Fujifilm is attempting to remove the coordination barriers that have historically slowed down the adoption of value-added print capabilities.
The Business Case for Embellishment Training
The Aspire Program’s emphasis on free training is notable in an industry where equipment vendors have traditionally charged for advanced application training or bundled it into equipment purchases. By making CMYK+ design and operation education freely accessible, Fujifilm is effectively investing in the growth of the market for its own equipment — the more designers and operators who know how to use fifth- and sixth-color stations, the more valuable those stations become, and the stronger the case for customers to specify Revoria presses with expanded color configurations.
For commercial printers, the value proposition is straightforward: digital embellishment commands higher margins than four-color process printing, and the cost of adding it to an existing digital production workflow — when the press already has the capability — is primarily a matter of training and workflow integration, not capital expenditure. The Aspire sessions provide the training component. What remains is for print businesses to make the organizational commitment to incorporate CMYK+ into their standard service offerings.
The timing of the Aspire Program expansion is notable given the current state of the commercial printing market. As run lengths continue to shorten and competition from digital alternatives intensifies, commercial printers are searching for revenue streams that cannot be commoditized. A four-color business card or brochure is increasingly a low-margin product that any competent printer can produce. A business card with a raised clear spot varnish on the logo and metallic gold accents, or a brochure with a soft-touch matte finish and selective gloss highlights, commands a premium that reflects the value added by the embellishment — not the underlying print cost.
Fujifilm’s Revoria Press lineup has been expanding its color configuration options, with the newly announced PC2120 representing the latest evolution of the platform. The ability to configure a press with five or six color stations — rather than the traditional four — gives printers flexibility in how they use the additional stations. A printer serving the cosmetics market might prioritize White for printing on dark or metallic substrates that are common in premium beauty packaging. A printer serving the hospitality market might prioritize Gold and Silver for metallic effects on menus, invitations, and event materials. A printer serving the direct mail market might prioritize Pink for expanding the achievable color gamut, making promotions more visually impactful. The Aspire Program’s educational resources help printers make informed decisions about which additional colors to deploy and how to market the resulting capabilities to their customers.
The July 28 session, titled “Getting Started with CMYK+ Design,” covers base palette setups for integrating specialty colors, blending techniques using Fujifilm plug-ins or custom palettes, and practical topics including adding spot, flood, and layered clear embellishments, achieving a dull varnish look with Clear toner, using Pink and Green to electrify colors, printing CMYK on colored media with White underlays, and estimating job costs to assess profit potential. By covering both the creative and commercial dimensions of CMYK+, the program aims to ensure that printers who adopt the technology can build a business case for it — not just use it as a technical capability that sits underutilized because no one has figured out how to sell it.
Source: WhatTheyThink, “Fujifilm Announces Aspire Program Updates and Designer Sessions Summer and Fall Dates,” July 21, 2026.
