Giclée - French for Kinkos

January 3, 2008 - Cleveland, Ohio - Many people on the internet that are selling art prints like to use the term giclée in selling their print quality. One need look no further than Wikipedia for the true meaning of giclée. It is a print made from a digital source using ink jet printing. I took part in a debate over the term giclée and one of the people in the debate said it was French for Kinkos and that in a sarcastic way is true. The ink jet prints you can get from Kinkos could be called giclée.

Giclée was a term coined in the early 90's for prints produced from a digital source by spraying ink from a nozzle using an Iris Printer instead of rollers in an offset process. It in fact did produce higher quality prints with much finer detail, at the time. As we all know since the early 90's digital technology and digital ink jet printers have exploded with better quality and finer detail. The ink jet printer you have on your desk may well produce better quality than the original Iris Printers.

The use of the term giclée implies better quality. Use of any ink jet printer could qualify for using the term. Any additional quality that you might not get using your home or office ink jet printer or in a "giclée" print would be from the inks used. Because someone uses the term giclée does NOT mean they are using high quality archival inks that won't fade. A giclée print says nothing about the material the print is printed on.

It has been and is the policy of DOUGLAS Art Prints® and DOUGLAS Modern Art Prints™ not to use the term giclée because we find it deceptive. We spell out and clearly state that our prints are all produced from 100% gallery quality archival materials, archival inks and papers.

One might wonder why someone would use a term like giclée when the term was coined for a technology that is now oudated and for what could now be a common ink jet print, from Kinkos.