Print Is Dead – Long Live Print

It’s a marriage, not a rivalry

We have seen how print can be used in conjunction with digital media, driving traffic to websites or tapping into audiences the digital won’t reach. But digital technology has also made print faster, cheaper, more flexible, and therefore more available.

The digital systems we work with now have resulted in a much quicker, cleaner method of artwork production that can flow back and forth between editors, authors and production personnel via digital networks

says Ian Bennett, who remembers the days when “cut and paste” meant literally that – pasting onto board with Cow gum. “There will always be the tight deadlines but at least we don’t have to remove thunderflies from the pages during the summer months… The pesky little critters would crawl over the artwork and get stuck in the glue!”

It has certainly transformed business for printers such as Warners. “We print quite a few weekly magazines here,” says Andy York, “and one that is going through tonight, the pdfs will be with us
by 5.00pm and the job is ready at 6am tomorrow morning – printed, bound and ready to be delivered.” It’s not just time that is being saved, either. “Years ago, where you had to pay paste-up artists, and then getting artwork made onto board, then going to film and then going to printing plates – that was extremely costly. But now, with a computer and a decent software package, much of that you can do yourself. That’s not taking into account the contribution of a designer, of course, but just in terms of getting it to that stage, it’s far cheaper than it ever was.”

This, of course, means that professional printing is within the price range of more businesses and individuals than ever before – all thanks to digital, which brings its own new method to the printing mix. “As well as litho and web printing, there is digital print, which means there’s no plate making required, so the unit cost can be brought down. It prints stright from pdfs to order, so if you only want five copies, you can have five copies. With litho there is a setup cost involved, so you’d need a certain quantity to make it viable. We do all three main types of printing on this site – digital, litho and web printing – which allows us to do everything from two copies to 200,000 copies.”

Where do we go from here?

“It’s a period of change at the moment,” says Andy York. “There are all sorts of new methods of communication, and I’m sure there’ll be more – but when the dust settles I think each medium will find its position and its use in the marketing mix. Print will be one of them. Quantities will reduce, I think, because marketing will be more targeted, more personal, but I think the value of print will re-establish itself. But it’s still a very valuable method of showing products or getting editorial out. We’re very confident about the future.”

Andy’s view certainly seems to fit in with our experience at The Moment and The Business Moment magazines. The former is printed, because that’s what works best for that audience. The latter is purely an app and virtual edition, because it allows for very targeted distribution via digital networks which suits a business readership. We don’t rule out going into print – in fact, we’d welcome it – but for now, digital publishing allows us to build the product at a lower cost, with more resources being put into the quality of the content. Horses for courses.

There are other, surprising examples of how digital and print can work in harmony. We know print can stimulate interest in the digital, but it seems the reverse is also true. “There are new markets opening up for printed products that are driven by sales of digital editions – people have read it on a digital reader and now want it to hold physically. One such case is the book The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom In The Universe. As a printed book (and a very beautiful one at that) it bumped along selling a few thousand copies every year until a digital version was released, which increased sales in that particular format but also prompted sales of the printed version to over a million copies. So there is room for both systems, each offering different qualities and experiences. One will not replace the other, they will have to learn to get along together thus providing the readers with a much richer experience and level of interaction with the product. From a personal level I fully embrace both digital and print. I like the additional enhancements and possibilities that the former brings and still enjoy the tangible qualities of the latter. There is plenty of room for both in my world.”
Little Alice – who is named after a character in a book – is perhaps way ahead of us in this respect. She also loves books, and reaches for one whenever the opportunity arises. If mum or dad or grandma are available to read to her, they’ll be pressed into service; if not, she’ll pore over the pages even though she can’t yet read the words. For her, they are not something that can be replaced by something else, but marvelous things in their own right – cherished objects that provide windows onto all manner of extraordinary worlds, without which there would be no “story time”. And that would be a sad thing indeed – not just for us nostalgic adults, but for her too. ■

For more information about Warners Midlands PLC, go to: www.warners.co.uk

Ian Bennett is a freelance designer and consultant working in digital media and print.
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