Big Printing's Next Stop: Customization Emerges as the Way Forward Amid the E-Reader Shift

For anyone working in print, the term "big printing" carries a measure of professional pride — and it also reflects a simple reality: this industry is woven into almost everything we do. Look around and you would be hard pressed to find an object untouched by printing. "Inextricably linked" is no exaggeration.

That said, an offhand chat with a colleague about e-books set off a flicker of unease in me about where the industry is heading: will we still need printing one day? As a new content medium, e-readers offer advantages over traditional bound books that look almost "fatal" — they consume no forest resources and are highly environmentally friendly; they hold enormous amounts of information while remaining easy to carry; and reading on them costs less than printed books. On the face of it, the handover from paper books to e-readers seems only a matter of course.

Meanwhile, the rise of the internet and other new media has long left newspaper printing on thin ice. With its vast, simultaneous and free flow of information, the web has stripped newspapers of their reason to exist — and that shift is steadily becoming reality in the United States. Since the start of this year, a long list of century-old newspapers have either shut down or reluctantly migrated to online platforms, giving up their printed editions.

Newspaper people can only keep asking, with a sigh: where does the future of the newspaper business lie? And as newspaper printing and book printing continue to take hits from new content carriers, every printing professional is forced to ask the same question — if both of those segments are lost, where does the future of big printing go?

The future, though, has always been in our own hands. New technology has hit the industry hard, and seen through the lens of sustainable resource use, stepping back from certain traditional markets is an inevitable stage in any industry's evolution — there is nothing to mourn. Look the other way and the new technologies emerging inside printing are quietly carving out a fresh market for us. It echoes what happened in the final 30 years of the last century, when the spread of the automobile unexpectedly handed broadcasting an emerging market of enormous potential.

With CTP, digital printing, I-COM and new print-management approaches arriving and steadily maturing, a different picture of printing is taking shape. Print and copy jobs that once were complex — requiring coordination across multiple trades and long lead times — are becoming simpler and faster. Before long, individuals will be able to order personalized print services straight from a printing plant and revise them whenever they like. Plants will take on ever larger volumes of personal print demand, and customized printing will let individual character shine. That is a market that is both compelling and huge.

There is no denying that the technology revolution is reshaping how we live. One day we may no longer need newspapers or books — but as individuals we will always want colorful, personalized expression. We will like printing more, and depend on it more. And with demand that large, printing will be around forever.

—Reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn), original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-362318.html