With the first month of classes over, I’ve had an opportunity for some interesting reflection. In my first-year class, the incoming group of students was greeted with the statement, “print is dead,” and asked to agree or disagree. The discussion led to many examples showing how deeply print is integrated into their lives. There were various types of comments from “I prefer books,” to “magazine readership is on the rise,” to “my cereal will always come in a package.” This was significant to me because these are students who are mostly born in the ’90s. They have grown up with all things digital. It’s the start of a great year, I thought.
I repeated the same exercise with my evening class, which is comprised mostly of working professionals. The response was different. Entwined in the discussion was a small dose of pessimism toward the longevity of the printed product. This group by majority would have grown up on the opposite side of the digital divide. Not to say that the discussion gave the impression that they didn’t value print; they just seemed to have some skepticism toward it, which changed the tone of the discussion just a bit.
My theory behind why the results between the two classes were so different is that print has changed, and if you are young enough not to have witnessed the changes, then you are blissfully unaware of them. To my first-year students, it isn’t at all strange that they are getting free newspapers on the subway or that their assigned reading is a PDF that they don’t need to print. They somehow naturally understand that print is here to stay and are keen to learn how this will look in the future.
As such, it is our pleasure to renew faith in print for the adults and explain it to the younger generations. This month’s lead article, “Transpromo – passé or present?” is a great step to unraveling the opportunity in the increasingly-complex market. The article explains the landscape of transpromo printing. Ryerson’s prepress experts Jason Lisi and Chris Smyth outline some of the processes and technology associated with customized printed statements. Here’s to hoping that one of you reading the article will call Telus and let them know that a coupon to Kernels does not reflect my buying patterns and that their statements need a transpromo boost.
natalia@graphicartsmag.com