People often make the assumption that ‘print is dead’ as ours becomes more and more a digital world. Yes it’s true that a lot of functionality previously provided by print now has a digital counterpart, but for the mostpart digital efforts are only strengthened by physical print, with ‘cross-media campaigns’ becoming the buzz word in marketing departments nationwide. As commercial printers, we have become more innovative and found more interesting ways to help our customers achieve their goals in a way that compliments their online work.
To support our claims of a thriving industry, we challenged ourselves to document all the ‘print’ we come into contact with from the moment we wake up to getting to work, with some interesting results:
- Canvas prints and photographs on the walls
- Newspapers, magazines and children’s books in the lounge
- Post – including direct mail and flyers, through the letterbox
- Fridge magnets, cereal boxes, milk cartons, bowls, cups, spoons and kitchen roll in the kitchen
- Tablecloth, birthday cards and pictures hung on the wall in the dining room
- Toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes, shampoo bottles, shower curtain and toilet roll in the bathroom
- Keyrings, mobile phone covers, workwear and printed house name plaques on leaving the house
- Number plates, car stickers, car door magnets, car air fresheners, tax disc holders, CD covers and car park tickets in the cars on the street
- Newsletters, loyalty cards, credit cards, money, business cards, coupon boxes and coupons at the local shop
- Road signs, shop signs, A boards, billboards, bus stop signs, banners, an advertising trailer, flyers in community notice boards, posters in shop windows and carrier bags in hands on the drive to work
The list is never ending and just a snippet of the print we come into contact with every day of the week, which just goes to show how diverse and thriving the print market is. With items that have become old hat, new ones are born – it wasn’t that long ago that things such as canvas prints would have been too expensive to adorn the walls of your house, and mobile phone covers would not have existed. And now the humble tax disc holder is about to become extinct as we wave goodbye to the need to display a tax disc. Yet some products simply seem to stand the test of time – business cards being but one example.
So, with evidence of a thriving industry, we are happy to say, print is most certainly not dead.