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Cité Numérique Testimonial

I sleep well at night knowing
that my image database is secure.

 

Cité Numérique, located in Lille, France’s retailing epicentre, is Europe’s largest photo studio, taking over 50 000 photos and producing 45 000 pages per year.

Denis Nowaczyk is their IT Manager. His roots are in communications and, like the most of us, became an IT user out of necessity. Today, he is an image expert, who understands the importance of managing the large quantities of digital assets that they have accumulated over the years. He speaks of terabytes of images as if it were nothing!

Mr. Nowaczyk tells how he worked with Perigee to reorganise Cité Numérique’s image database and how an initial software purchase, led to long-term partnership.

Cité Numérique is one of the largest graphic production houses in the communications industry. How did you end up where you are today?

My experience is not typical. After working awhile in photos and video, I started working with freelancers and managing project quality. This was incredibly complicated and fastidious work to do by hand, without some sort of special tool. This is where IT technology stepped in and made a big difference. Then, by extension, I became immersed in retouching images for my clients. I very quickly became a photo & video retouching expert.

So you continued in the technology track?

Yes, soon after, I started at an agency, OPA, where I concentrated on the production side. We were a Mac shop and digital, in those days, meant photo shoots and pre-press.

This is when I became introduced to Perigee. I chose to integrate Perigee’s solution. It was one of the few applications that easily managed images, which, as you know, are quite heavy files. In 1997, this was rare to find!

Today, how many people do you manage at Cité Numérique?

We have 8 people that work on production. Specifically, there are team members that each have different roles and strengths; Mac specialists, those that concentrate more on databases, photos experts, colour specialists, and, of course, an IT Administrator as well as Process Administrator.

And where exactly in the process does Perigee have the greatest impact?

Perigee is implemented in two areas, 1., photos – the flow of images, storage and file management and 2., prepress management and the prepress server. Managing and securing data are two of Perigee’s strong points. And, at Cité Numérique, reorganising these processes is complicated and risky but we are doing it because we will need a system that meets 100% of our needs for the future. Our production database was managed with another system that we thought was solid, but, in fact, this other company took too long to respond to our needs, or not at all. Their system never seemed to evolve, but Perigee has already implemented similar systems. We will save time and secure our data and, this time, we know exactly what we will be getting.

What are the objectives of the project?

We live in a crucial time. The new Perigee database manages all of our clients – more that 40 accounts. We automatically standardise images to a standard format and they are held in a centralised database with user rights attached. This is a major evolution!

Is this new configuration both more secure and more fluid?

The originality of the system is that backups can be performed on the fly onto hard disks. It is a very easy for users to manage and they have gotten used to the built-in security. As a manager, it is a great tool that makes my life that much easier.

Do you access files via the internet?

Yes, being able to access our databases from the web was a real advance for us. We follow production in real-time. We share files with a collaborative workflow. We save a lot of time. And, of course, we no longer courier packages as often!

And how is the new system doing?

Very well! We already managed and store more than 1.5 terabytes with Perigee. It is very smooth. No major incidents. New data to come (more terabytes!) will also be easy to manage in the sense that the procedures put into place are sure and very controlled.

Do you have large amounts of data stored?

In total, there will be 5 terabytes stored on hard disks. We monitor the pipeline and adjust it each year as approximately 60,000 images are ordered annually and as many page layouts are we can handle. Our IT system is critical to our success, as we could not function without it. There can be no errors, no downtime.

Have you found that Perigee responds quickly to your questions, demands?

Yes, Perigee is very responsive and, in addition, they guide us and take the lead. I ordered some hard disk. Right away, they were formatted, put into place, tested and monitored. I did nothing! All I had to do was verify the results! I used this time to be hands on and manage projects and production.

What do you see happening in the future of graphics/communications?

I don’t really like IT and don’t want to be in IT. But I think it has a place- to facilitate the process, but not replace the skills needed for the profession. I like the idea of an industry-specific tool such as Perigee’s. It saves time in the process and gives us peace of mind. So, as for the future of the profession, I will be happy knowing that I can concentrate first on graphics and communications tools to facilitate this process continue to develop.