Is print dead or just dying slowly?

This would have to do with how you define “Print”

If you take a look at traditional print such as litho, web etc then yes the market is shrinking.

In today’s market people’s expectations are changing, people expect to have their print in their hands in two to three days rather than the two to three weeks we used to expect. And because of this, digital print technology is increasing rapidly; think of the increase in vehicle/ building wrapping as well as large format/digital billboards and the movement from paper to electronic print.

Unfortunately, at the moment digital paper print still has many limitations, such as size and the lack of multiple finishes and I still only think of digital as an alternative for litho for when run size and cost are an issue, but as technology progresses then quality and cost will become less of an issue.

Twenty years ago our high streets were inundated with record shops and who would have thought then that they would disappear as if over night. The same is happening with print, even in the early days of computers we would wait weeks to see our masterpiece in print now it can be a matter of hours if not minutes and as print becomes more versatile we will find more ways to represent ourselves using the new technologies.

With regards to the change over from traditional to electronic print I don’t think we will be losing traditional print just yet, but as electronic print becomes the norm, seeing your product in a glossy brochure or magazine will seem like something out of the ark to the younger generations who have been brought up purely on electronic print.

So is print at the end of its lifecycle? Print is morphing and changing and as long as we all move with the times we will be fine.

Electronic or physical print?

About three weeks ago I asked, via LinkedIn, the following question:

Do you prefer to read your books or magazines electronically or to have a physically printed item?

Now this is a bit of a controversial question, as I obviously work in the print industry but the results were staggering and have helped me take a big sigh of relief when looking at the future of print. I was amazed at the number of responses I received and the strong feeling from everyone regarding their reading habits and to find that 75% of respondents still prefer to read their books in hard copy is music to my ears. I do, however, feel that over the next couple of years these statistics will change dramatically and is definitely a question to ask again next year.

Now the reason why I asked this question was because late last year my mobile phone company offered me a sparkly new smart phone on renewal of my contract (I love it) and being an avid reader my whole life I quickly found a great free Ebook app. I typically have two books on the go at any one time but if you’d asked me this question 12 months ago I would have emphatically said no, I will not give up my hard copy books for an electronic version. This changed, however, after downloading a couple of free open source books (I had made a promise to myself to read more of the classics) and I found myself reading predominantly Ebooks, so much so a couple of months ago I invested in a 7” tablet EReader. Now, whenever I have five minutes to myself I find myself reading, in the doctors surgery or waiting for appointments no more lugging books around for me.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love reading magazines and newspapers in hard copy, getting them through the door, the smell of the print (I know, I know, I am a print geek after all) and then flicking through the pages until I find an article I am interested in - there is no way a phone, PC or tablet is going to be able to replicate that, so as you can tell I am currently in the both category but this may change J

I thought you might like to read the best of the responses to the question.

Carlos Gutierrez

http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/carlos-gutierrez/b/826/2b9

Personally I prefer to have them physically printed but I do believe that the electronic world is catching on very fast in the sense that devices such as the kindle and a number of ebook readers have come onto the market. This makes storage of books etc a lot easier that carrying around bulky books, another thing that these manufacturers have realised especially with the kindle is that the screen doesn't resemble that of a computer making a more viable alternative to books as after sitting at a screen 8-10 hours a day the last thing I want to do is come back to a screen to read a book.

Kathryn Thomas-Daniels

http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/kathryn-thomas-daniels/27/602/82a

I prefer a printed copy, also there is something about an old book, it may be the mystery or the romance? but it tells a tale, the smell, the turned corners, the coffee stains on the back cover! to pass a book on is a good gift to share.

Lee Clouse

http://www.linkedin.com/in/lclouse

I love the Kindle for reading books--I actually think I read faster on it. Magazines look great on an iPad. Newspapers, for no reason whatsoever, I like the print version. Seems arbitrary, I know. It's very interesting to see that most every answer here prefers print. That is definitely contrary to what we are being led to believe

The Effective Use of Leaflets to Market your Company

Leaflets are type of open letter which can be circulated in a number of ways and they are a great cost effective way to get your message across to your future clients.

I have put together a 10 point check list of what you need to think about before you even start putting your ideas onto paper.

1. What are you selling and to who? Who is your target market in this instance, you will need to narrow this down so your company's message is clear.

2. How do you intend on getting your information to these people. By hand, post, through the door or left at various venues etc.

3. Who is going to be reading your leaflet - you need to design it with this in mind. There is no point in writing your text at graduate level if it is going to be read by average Joe Public.

4. Decide on your paper stock, if your target audience is upmarket you need to be thinking about using a high quality, heavy gloss or silk paper/card, if downmarket then a lightweight, cost effective paper will do.

5. When deciding on what is going to be in your leaflet always give a thought to what is the end benefit to your customer.

6. When designing your leaflet always use AIDA

• A - Attention - you need to grab the attention of the person reading it.
• I - Interest - once you have their attention you need to sustain that by keeping them interested.
• D - Desire - now you have their interest you need to get them to desire your product. Use customer testimonials, case studies etc.
• A - Action - always have a call to action, such as a specific offer, discount or maybe a voucher.

7. Reflect your brand identity throughout your leaflet, making sure that your brand is clearly recognised. Potential customers typically need to have seen your customer's message 6 times before they will buy from you.

8. Do not be afraid to leave white space - too much information and your may lose your message, it will also make it difficult to read and is therefore much more likely to end up in your potential clients recycle bin.

9. Don't use jargon.

10. Remember to leave room for your contact information, telephone, email and web address.

With the increase in digital print it is much more cost effective these days to target your leaflets to specific markets. There is no point in producing one leaflet in their 1000's if only a quarter of them are going to be of interest to who you are handing them out to.

Always keep your target market in mind at all times and design your leaflet to that specific market.

Print Perception

During the 10 years plus I have been working in print I have had the pleasure of working with people who totally understand the print process but on the other side of the coin are the people who do not. Don’t get me wrong I am not putting anyone down here, in my opinion you have to be a little odd in the first place to find print interesting but in the same way I think it is odd that people find crunching numbers interesting, hence why I outsource my accounts.

I don’t expect everyone to be an expert at print but there are a number of printers that do, they set tight criteria of how artwork must be set up and if it is not exactly correct then they will not accept it. Others will take your artwork and charge you a fee for getting it print ready. 'Hey' I hear you say, 'it printed ok on your office printer so why do you need to pay someone to get it “print ready” for you?'.

Unfortunately when Microsoft were designing their suite of packages they set their criteria for viewing on screen, and what you see on screen is light which is produced in RGB (red green blue) but when it comes to print your artwork will need to be CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and keyplate black) and unless you have a professional program such as photoshop or adobe indesign you will have some difficulty making that conversion.

Next, if you have any images that touch the very edge of your paper you have supply your artwork with “bleed” which is usually 3mm on all edges (even the edges where images don’t touch the edge). This is so your document can be printed oversized and then trimmed down to the correct size so that there are no white edges around your final printed image. If you have one of the above professional program or you are getting your artwork professionally designed your artwork should always be supplied with crops (these are a pattern of lines indicating to the printer where to trim (crop) your design) and bleed (minimum 3mm all around).

If designing yourself make sure all artwork, text and images are at least 300dpi (dots per square inch) this can be quite tricky to check unless you have a professional program (see above) so it pays to be friendly with your printer or print manager so they can check this for you.

Finally before sending your artwork to print, check, check and check again for typo’s. If you can get someone else to proof read it for you all the better as a fresh set of eyes on the artwork are always worth it. If you are using a professional graphic designer don’t presume that he is going to spell check your work for you, he or she will send you a proof before it goes to print and the onus is on you to ensure that all names, telephone numbers, spelling and grammar is correct.

Here’s a little horror story for you:

A few months ago I met a guy at a networking meeting whose marketing leaflet, when it came back from the printers, had over 20 spelling and grammar errors - he was not a happy bunny. There was no way anyone would accept the leaflet as a serious marketing piece so he had to bin all 5000, a very expensive mistake for a fledgling business. He had used his computer spell checker rather than proof reading the text himself and words such as unformed rather than uniformed and there instead of their had crept in.

Alwasy remember, it is not the graphic designer or the printers responsibility to check your work for spelling and grammar errors it is yours.

If you liked the above article and have some questions relating to print please drop me an email to jo@morganpm.biz or give me a call on 01443 472565