Print Evolution
By Daniel Dejan
Prior to the desktop publishing revolution years ago, designers and print production professionals had to physically “spec” type to fit a given area, send it out to a typographer to set the type and output the galleys to do the paste-up on art boards. Sounds arcane, doesn’t it?
Then personal computers were introduced. They came complete with creative composition and implementation software, image manipulation software, desktop scanners, four-color printers and access to more than 20,000 fonts. Along with designing and implementing the key-line electronically, designers and print production personnel were now expected to be scanner operators, photo re-touchers and typographers. Of course, few had any formal training to accomplish these processes proficiently. Generally, these were trades done by craftspeople working for large companies with large capital investments in skilled labor and expensive equipment.
This begs the larger question: if designers were now graphically “self-sufficient,” did the typographers go out of business? Some did, yes, but most, by purchasing a software upgrade package, evolved their very expensive output devices into RIPs (raster imaging processors) which could now convert a designer’s computer RGB files into CMYK output either as a proof or as finished separated film for printers to plate and print. These new companies became so instrumental in the graphic arts workflow that their formalized status and importance became unquestioned. They became known as “Service Bureaus.”
The point of the little traipse down memory lane is that typographers, traditional color engravers/separators, dot-etchers and photo re-touchers were expected to go out of business because of technological advances. However, many of them made the necessary upgrades, learned new skills, and found new revenue streams by offering color management, file correction, advanced scanning and photo manipulation and typographical and font corrections capabilities. They, in essence, evolved.
At a more macro view, new technology and current market trends in the communications industry necessitated that printers evolve. By keeping up with market demands and finding new products, services and revenue streams, printers are reinventing themselves all over the world. There are extraordinary opportunities for their clients who don’t view print as only an ink-on-paper experience. The term print is being redefined through application and context.
Virtually all communication is generated from the same starting point—the computers of content creators—and must be processed through the same technological workflow turnstile: printers’ pre-press, pre-media departments. A content creator sits at their computer to generate some type of communications file. They will use established software to produce content, most of which is intended to be re-purposed for a variety of media—offset printing, variable data printing, website (possibly), mobile media (increasingly) and for a tablet (most recently).
The leading-edge printers are able to receive the original content files and let their pre-media department process the re-purposing of that file with the input and direction of the content creator, production manager, media buyer or media strategist. The same businesses that previously set type can now re-purpose files for use in a website, mobile media, and print. This opens up extraordinary new relational possibilities with your clients and your printer.
We have learned in a decade of experience that print—in the form of direct mail, publishing, catalog, manufacturing and retail collateral—is still the foundational cornerstone of integrated marketing. Print traffics readers to websites, which invite them to e-mail relationships that offer them opportunities to join social networks and voice-of-the-customer relationships. At every point in the chain, astute marketers can make prospects aware of new offers and connect more deeply. By offering everything from variable data printing, web-to-print, website development, e-mail communications, social network marketing, and tablet-based apps and communications, the print industry has evolved into a marketer’s best friend.
It is certainly a brave new world!