An Inconvenient Truth?
I keep hearing from designers that print is dying.
When David Carson proclaimed this in the title of his bestselling monograph The End of Print filled with only his printed work, it had an ironic ring. Yeah right. Print’s dead, and the world’s coming to an end too.
It reminded me of Annie Hall when a young Woody Allen won’t do his homework because the universe is going to explode.
His doctor said, “That’s not for a billion years.” Fact is, most far-fetched predictions usually come true.
Today, a young German masters student came to see me with his thesis printed out on clean, white paper. He had just come from meeting with a well-known designer who told him he should find an alternate means to reach the largest number of people. He should forget print.
So, the student asked, “Do you think that’s right? Do you think print is dying?”
After a nervous chuckle, I asked how he reads the newspaper. The answer: “On the Internet.”
Okay, he’s under 30. But the other night I asked two friends, both over 60, the same question. The answer was the same.
And now I don’t want to do my homework either.
Steven Heller, co-chair of the MFA Design Program at the School of Visual Arts, is the author of over one hundred books, most recently Stylepedia: A Guide to Graphic Design Mannerisms, Quirks, and Conceits from Chronicle Books.
Jennifer Daniel makes most of what you’d like to know about her available at httpcolonforwardslashforwardslashwwwdotjenniferdanieldotcom.com. Everything you'd like to know about Erin Sparling is on Flickr, Pownce, and Del.icio.us.
Remarks 97 total remarks were added before the post was closed.
josh althorpe
nice new site.
Bradley Smith
Print is definitely *not* dying.
Realigning a bit? Perhaps.
I think it is important to note that print can differentiate in this digital world. Digital signage is becoming more prevalent in many settings. The allure of dynamically changing your content on the fly with very little expense – at least on the physical production side – is great. That said, people make the huge mistake of putting this content on your average LCD or plasma screen. It's the same trap that beige boxes are for computers. It's normal. It's not exciting. Everyone else has it. You've got your wonderful branded content inside your wonderful physical space, and then you have an ugly bezel with another company's logo and buttons and lights and ports and such. There are limits to the aspect ratios and more.
Print can be any size. Print can be on any material. It can have texture and reflection and can be touched. It's not stale and bland. It can evolve and be anything. That's what print is.
Can digital do the same thing? It can, with greater thought and money and the right direction. But print is that added differentiator. Print is not dead. Print is different.
Dario Morgante
really hope its not dead or dying, cause I'm a publisher... maybe the way that people aquire information is becoming different, from the newspaper to the net... but I still think that the only way to read books or comics or to collect nice photos for instance, is on printed paper...
Tom Dolan
Not dead, but deader. Print's slow, expensive, ungreen, and not very interactive. It has it's place, a place I love, but it's a smaller and smaller piece of turf every day.
Matthew McVickar
I don't think print is dead either. There's still a lot of interesting print work being done, and I think as long as one person still appreciates the possibilities and beauty of the medium, it isn't dead. I would love to read a piece on what "print is dead" actually means to the writer, rather than a bunch of articles debating the truth of this trendy statement.
The newspaper isn't a good example of the state of print. With some notable exceptions, newspapers are a primarily informative medium — design gets second billing to the content itself, which itself is constricted by the (hopefully) factual and editorial bounds of journalism. Newspapers are in print because that's how information was best and most elegantly distributed for so long. Now it's generally easier done on the internet, as the way we read our news has changed — chunks of information usually no longer than a blog post, on-demand and nearly ubiquitous.
Ask that student how he reads novels.
Jeff Croft
Print is dying, but it's doing so very slowly -- and that trend will continue. Print will eventually be replaced, but it won't be soon.
That having been said, newspapers in print are going to die off faster than most other print-based work. Why? Because the news happens around the clock, and print simply can't deliver that kind of timeliness.
So yes -- print is dying. But, even print newspapers are still going to be around for a good while, in my opinion.
Chris Carpenter
What's interesting about the newspaper's death is newsprint. Its not exactly eco-friendly in the greater scheme of things is now? All that paper, trees being felled left right and center. Ink, hmm how clean is that? If anything, given the response to recycling the death of newspapers would be accelerated by eco terms and not technology.
Unless someone can come up with a way to increase screen size beyond the iPhone, thats cheap, lighweight and flexible then newspapers are hear to stay.
Perhaps magazine might go first? Beyond that, revenue would have to generated. Working for an online newspaper that charges for its content, I see this problem all the time: its not easy. The attitude I most often face is "its online, why isn't it free?", or "oh I go to www.blahblahblah.com" because thats free.
I just love print, the smell, the texture of the ink on paper, everything. I have this weird fetish with new books, one I see what typographic information there is and then, holding the book up and flicking the pages and taking a deep sniff. Sometimes I am rewarded on both fronts, sometimes not.
Print is here to stay, for a while, a bit...
Neil Scott
The situation of print is analogous to that of painting after the invention of photography. It seems redundant, but will surely discover and embrace its niche.
catherine
Seems a bit of a stretch to conclude from 3 people reading the paper online that print is dying. After all, newspapers aren't the only thing in print. Might be fair to conclude that newspapers as we've known them are dying. Which is, I think, a different discussion altogether.
Lou Rosenfeld
What Neil said. And Catherine. I'm not crazy about this "either it's dying or it's not" line of thinking. Print will clearly continue in some form or fashion; what will change is its role as an actor in the ecosystem of communications. It's more interesting to consider what that role will be, and how it will complement and combine with other media in that ecosystem.
Nigel York
You can't beat a good book. Or magazine. Print's alive and kicking, and I speak as one manages websites for a living. Scanning screens for quick information has it's place but it cannot compare with curling up and disappearing inside a book, or kicking back in a chair with a newspaper for an hour. Plus .. they don't make your eyes ache!
Margo Pearson
This looks a lot like subtraction.com. :) In a good way.
Forrest
Besides, without print, what reason would we have to make paper ball meteors???
Jason Santa Maria
One thing is for sure, whether or not the printed newspaper is dying, people find ways to use and produce the things they love. Right now the internet has the advantage due to its accessibility. But should we consider print a stagnant medium, standing still and waiting to be overcome? Or are there innovations left to be had? It seems like the things that make sense to maintain digitally, quick consumables like utility bills and newspapers, will move in that direction, whereas longer consumables like books will keep to the best medium for their content, paper.
A more fitting question might be "Will the end of print come with the end of the printed newspaper?"
Samuel Mikel Bowles
Print will not die as long as there is a culture of nostalgia formed around the physical, but even that culture is slowly shifting and changing.
There is a new generation of young people coming up who don't know what it feels like to run a fingernail between the seems of a CD until the plastic peels pack revealing that smell. The smell of new music: plastic and paper and ink. They don't remember what it's like to page through liner notes before placing that sparkling disk in the CD tray.
Nostalgia will die, necessity will wane, and most importantly new needs will be created. Today I don't want to know what happened yesterday, I want to know what is happening now. It will take generations and probably even then print wont "die" our grandchildren will simply find themselves chuckling and saying, "Ink on paper, how quaint."
Jandos
This web site has something very few sites manage—an elegant (dare I suggest it?) print-like layout. With very few modifications, the top of this page, commissioned illustration, white space and all, could be at home on a magazine spread. While it's tempting to suggest that if every site could match abriefmessage.com on its first day, the death of print would be a question without any importance to designers, editors or readers. But for the most part the web serves a very different function than print communications. The web is democratic, freewheeling and timely, print can be elegant, authoritative, permanent, and (at least for now) portable in a way web sites can't. TV didn't kill print or the cinema house (despite predictions), neither will the web.
Brendan Cullen
I don't think print as a medium is dying, rather the 'print as a business model' is dying.
If not dead already, now that Google has cut out the middleman and is hosting news...
@Samuel: "...what it feels like to run a fingernail between the seems of a CD"
You mean physically cracking the case in frustration because the 6 security stickers (after removing the plastic) won't tear along the edge of the case? :)
Chad
Design seems very similar to Subtraction... I VERY much look forward to the future content, however.
Jesse
Maybe print as a mass media is dying, but there's something irreplaceable about a crisp (or even well-weathered), neatly bound stack of paper and ink. Graphic novels, children's books, fan 'zines, paperbacks... These are artifacts of nostalgia, intrigue, art. What is old is new again.
beth
As long as people like to look at pictures, print won't be going anywhere. I might get all my news online, but I still buy 20 magazines a month, if only because I enjoy the look of them. And I can't imagine ever preferring to read something online than in a book.
Niki Brown
As a web designer I can understand why so many of my profession think that print is dying or dead, but I am still captivated and fascinated with the tactile experience of print, especially letterpress.
Travis Gertz
I think print will always have a place, at least in the world of art, marketing, or “fast information”.
Just take a walk down the street of a busy city and look at the posters, the handbills, bus advertisements, etc. While a lot of these can be considered shite, there is some beautiful work there that I can't see disappearing any time soon. Sure much of our advertising may become digitized, but there is still going to be a huge amount of grassroots art and promotion being done on the printed format.
This is just one example. Have a look at the art, photos, and posters on your walls. You gonna replace that with LCDs or eInk anytime soon? Although not necessarily design, the paper format still has its place.
I can see an increase in synthetic papers much more plausible than a complete elimination.
Greg J. Smith
Great post Steven!
I did my M.Arch thesis on the architectural implications of the (slow) death of the newspaper industry. That medium is at a very uncomfortable crossroads between a number of big market shifts. People really enjoy the tangible experience of interacting with paper, and in the long term it is still more reliable for archiving. I do think the daily paper is a decadent use of resources though, so I'm looking forward to seeing it migrate into dataspace (not just be "put" online).
I've started posting chunks of my research at my blog Serial Consign, the first dispatch is viewable here. I link out in many directions, tracking interesting research & design implications. Please come take a look.
Laura Forde
Print will never truly die. Television did not simply replace radio (although I suppose some would argue that it did). As a matter of fact, I fell asleep last night listening to "This American Life" (albeit online, not on a proper radio). Furthermore, I have no need to interact with Ira Glass, I just enjoy listening, and frankly it's a relief to just listen. Such a relief that I fell asleep. While the death of listening may be another topic for another day, I do think the true "death" of print is a myth.
Congratulations Liz and Khoi on your attractive and pithy new website.
Victor
I don't pretend to be at all involved with the development of this sort of technology, but there is a happy medium here.
Paper has its benefits: readability, clarity, texture, depth, etc. It also has downsides: wasteful, static, etc.
Screens have the opposite qualities as we well know.
Every now and then, however, the tech media mentions e-paper. At the moment, it's nothing more than a monochrome, low contrast prototype. But one of its main components is a specially formulated responsive ink. It actually uses a type of ink, not colored pixels. Give it a few more years, and the paper half (whereby the commands are sent to the ink) of the technology could be woven into traditional paper, much like the dollar bill's security threads, and we would have the benefits of both paper and screens: crisp detail, texture, dynamic content, and less waste (because the ink would reorient itself to form new pages, etc).
This is of course a long way off, but I don't see any reason why this couldn't happen.
Mark Taylor
It smells nice, it feels nice, it pops up, it stacks up, you can give it someone else, it's 3D, its bendy, it's stiff, it's big, it's small, it's good, you keep it for longer than a computer..........hm I feel dizzy @#*****-!!
Dave Kinsella
I think print as a medium for news delivery is losing its appeal. These days people want the news within minutes of it occuring and then they want to react to it in some way such as expressing their own opinion or bringing it to somebody else's attention. Print just can't keep up in that space anymore.
I think the flipside is that when we want to switch off, we are willing to pick up a book or magazine that makes no demands on us in the way that everything online does. Print has a place in that quiet part of our lives when we need to "go offline".
John Ratcliffe-Lee
I'm well under 30 and I still enjoy the context that print offers. For example, I much prefer paging through the New York Times Magazine than reading the RSS feeds. Sure, the words are still the same but you can gain much more insight to the editorial process through looking at the issue as a bigger picture instead of individual bite-size pieces.
Digital information, as a medium, most certainly has it's uses and advantages - especially in terms of accessibility, speed of delivery, etc. However, deluging ourselves with so much instant data - constantly - doesn't give us the time to process, reflect and realize why we were taking the time to read it in the first place.
MATTHEW ROSE
I'm in the print and printed world up to my ears and have been since I started to draw at age 5. Nothing has changed in all these years as I work as an artist, writer, and now digital printer here in Paris. I love paper in all its incarnations, cutting it, gluing it, mailing it (mail art), printing it and reading it. We often combine printed material with light (photons via the Net) and find that this marriage is more efficient: the right bit of paper at the right time for the right person. However, I'm probably responsible for the transformation of a small forest given my recent 1000-piece installations. I do read on the net, but also steal magazines from my friends and hotels and airplanes, and I buy hundreds of used paperback books a year, read them and give them away. Print is not dead at all, it's just going through puberty.
Gorgeous site, by the way.
Best,
Matthew Rose / Paris, France
Bob
Print is sick, not dead. He will get better.
pv
while on the subject of print--would you know of any 'usability' study on the subject? yes, the term belongs to the digital domain; but, i work in education and have been trying to figure out print design strategies to engage an audience that is distracted/lives in a world of sensory overload. of course we are still battering them with arcane print material--and that is going to be around for a bit, negroponte's machine aside. any ideas?
Jeremy Jenum
We often have this nostalgic view of a pre-Information Era where all of the information with which we currently interact was found in print or broadcast medium. Thus, it is natural to say that "print is being replaced with the internet".
For those of us that can remember a pre-internet time - we didn't have up-to-the-second information, centralized content with delocalized contributors, or rich media from all over the world. I was glad to get 4 channels on the TV and an outstate newspaper version from the nearest big city. We didn't even know this information existed - let alone look for a replacement technology.
That said - the traditional sources for timely information are shifting to this great internet thing - but that is far from all content that works well in print form. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders - aren't suffering due to the population's lack of interest in print.
Mandy Brown
I still own a number of books from when I was a kid, not quite 30 years ago. There are several books on my shelves that are over 100 years old. And there are many books in collections and libraries the world over that are thousands of years old.
A well-made and cared-for book has a half-life of at least a century. What's the half-life of digital content? A couple years, at best?
When people say that print can't last in a digital world, they've got it backwards. The materiality of print is what allows it to survive; print is durable where digital is ephemeral.
Jeremy
One of my favorite quotes from Frank Zappa, "Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny".
Just like all other mediums, it will find it's place.
Nick
Detween 65% and 80% of people who buy something on the web have already browsed a catalogue depending on the research you read. Print is growing! hand in hand with etail. Direct Mail on the other hand is of course as dead as a dodo.
ehtnax
In order to answer the question "Is print dead?" one must first know what it meant for print to be alive. Lots of writing out there on the subject but this one by Victor Hugo is my fave!
Jason Kratz
Not sure I buy the print is dead thing. As others have pointed out there are really two stories here: the death of printed newspapers and the death of print as a whole. The former is certainly happening already and the numbers are out there to prove it.
The latter, at least from my perspective, is not in the ballpark of truth. As Nick pointed out there is a correlation between catalogs and buying on the web. As an example in my own life: I'd much rather browse through the Land's End catalog and then buy online. The experience is far more enriching than just going to the website.
What worries me is that we, as a society/culture, make sure that the news reported online has sufficient depth. One of the benefits of print and it's slowness in the newspaper business is the ability to provide coverage that isn't possible in the sound-bite world of CNN and the web. And I actually still turn to newspapers even when I have a 24x7 TV/web source for news because in many cases the newspapers add a lot of value. I hope that continues online.
We certainly don't need less coverage of important things...
Geoffrey Smith
Print may die.
Good design will not.
Adopt. Adapt. Improve.
Now stop crying and get to work.
Sónia
I'm 32 and i've been reading on screen for almost all my life but i'm still not comfortable with it...
Ann
I think we for-print designers should do everything in our power to propagate the "print is dead" mindset, at least until those who think they can design for print abandon the field, leaving it to those who can.
JG
I actually stopped doing screen-design because I was sick of 90°-angles and building webpage-templates which all have this huge white box in the middle "where the text will go later".
I like print because you can add all those little details, you can be creative with the typography, you can layout with much more freedom than you have in screendesign.
Not to speak of the fact that your layout will look exactly the same on paper (given nothing went wrong), contrary to all those different render-engines of all those browsers or a webprogrammer that calls to tell you that you definately can't have this and that.
and nothing is as relaxing as lying in bed browsing through an art/design-book. atleast sitting on a chair infront of a display is not.
Nick Valvo
Here we are, a bunch of people interested in the future of the written word, swapping dicta, some insightful, in the margins of Heller's pithy and entertaining post.
That is to say, we are doing, right now, the one thing that print does not do well.
Beerzie Boy
Print is not dying. And neither are record albums, typewriters, or pay phones.
Nathan Donaldson
I wish someone will tell design educators that print is dying. Year after year they turn out more and more students focussing on print. Where are the students focussing on electronic media? Is it a case of dinosaurs sticking to what they know?
Dominik Lenk
After I tried to engrave text on my screen, I have to admit that there will always be some things that are only available in print.
One of them is the texture of a printed page. Unfortunately, that too is slowly disappearing from the world of print.
bowerbird
i see you put this on the web.
maybe you should have tried to
get it put into print instead.
-bowerbird
Jeff Croft
Dominik: Always? That's a pretty decisive thing to say. Are you certain screen-based media will never have texture? I would bet a lot of money that it's only a matter of time before screens have not only texture, but also bendability, transparency, disposability, and many other charactistics that currently only really apply to paper.
Jeffrey
congrats on being the only other site on the internet who dares to use apex serif! welcome to the club!
love,
threadless
Karmadude
For the sake of the tree, please let print die
Clay
The sudden rush to defend print by its many practitioners whenever The Death Of Print is broached is unnecessary.
One need only glance about the surroundings of the device which one uses to view non-print to see that print is presently as dead as the sun.
Josh
It is beautiful, the site that is. A reminder of how much print has taught web.
Tragic message! I think people are over dramatizing. Just like painting with photography and digital with film, things change but rarely to mediums die...they evolve. Print is especially not going to die. However, it is changing really fast.
Now print designers will have a taste of what web developers/designers experience daily. Rapid change!
I hope print never dies. I am stimulated by both mediums.
We will all live if we teach each other.
Cheers,
Josh
Mike
I really like the format of this site; nice job!
I agree with the others who say print is not dying but is instead changing. Newspapers are dying and so are many news and "general interest" magazines, but books and certain other kinds of print (newsletters, "specialty" magazines) don't seem (to me at least) to be dying.
I haven't seen anyone comment on the immutability of print. If you have ever dealt with the legal system, everything is on paper. I guess I would want it that way, I just don't trust encryption/DRM/et. al. to protect "electronic" content from modification.
I have the same misgivings about digital photography (which I love BTW): I just don't trust "pictures" as much anymore. Sure, you could "fake" stuff in a darkroom but it was *HARD* to do well. Now, Photoshop makes it *easy*. Same with digital typesetting: if all books were electronic, how could we keep them from being edited and re-issued as "originals"?
You could archive everything or try MD5s on each book, but somehow I don't think it would work. I guess I'm really talking about "counterfeiting"; maybe that's why we don't have digital money...
JT Helms
I know I couldn't read a novel on a screen.
Mimo
ever saw digital packaging? print wont die. it will live on in the fields where it is strong: printing a contrast on a piece of paper to express something. but it will be replaced in fields where it is much more efficient to use digital screens.
Suzie Kelly
If video killed the radio star, did blogging kill the zine?
Mark Rosal
Many forms of print are dying, but it's the quick-information forms of print -- newspapers, greeting cards and yes, love letters.
But the real question is whether or not digital is ready to take the lead. Sadly, the answer is no.
Oh sure, technologically, digital is omni-present and finally financially-backed. But the craftmanship is missing on a disproportionately large scale. Most animation is shlocked together without regard to character, grace or fluidity. Usability is yet an unknown subject for most interactive designers. Grid layouts exist only in the best CSS/HTML sites. Rarely is it used properly in Flash sites.
And then there's the type. Oh, dear Lord, save the type. Type is print's last stand, its immovable cornerstone. Interactive designs rarely make use of the best of type. Here, technology breeds ignorance. Set a print designer next to an interactive designer and ask each one to identify Arial vs. Helvetica. The print designer will win 9 out of 10 times. Yet I would estimate that close to 90% of web content is text.
So, print may be dying. That's not the problem. It's that digital design isn't ready.
Best of luck to you Khoi and Liz. You have a new fan.
Alejandro Banuet
please remember that newspapers weren’t created for information or editorial purposes... but to advertise publicity.
Please ask your friends under 30 and over 60 if they look for publicity “on the Internet”...
Margo Pearson
It's rather pointless to say "print will die" or "print will live". Print will evolve just like it has for hundreds and hundreds of years. The way we live is an evolutionary process and will just keep changing to meet our needs. Are we ever going to stop wanting to make things that are "printed"? Probably not. We may not read the newspaper that way anymore, but people love letterpress things, they love cards, they love to buy magazines and look at them. They'll just change and you'll all be having this same conversation only with a twist in 20 years.
Dave Rau
Mark's comment above completely resonates with me; digital is so far behind. The web is seriously lacking in the visual department. Images are too small, over-compressed and lacking a lot of presence in layouts.
We're still figuring out how to make things look the same across web browsers! Yikes. We'll be lucky to be past that 20 years after the W3C put out the CSS1 specification.
--
To be more abstract, I see this as a debate between digital and analogue, and it's sad to imagine life continuing to be less real, but really interesting. It's only a matter of time before digital replaces a lot of things; but, it will be really interesting when something replaces digital.
Dave Rau
And I've just run over my "really interesting" quota for the week.
Alejandro Banuet
please remember that newspapers weren’t created for information or editorial purposes... but to advertise publicity.
ask your friends under 30 and over 60 if they look for publicity “on the Internet”...
nice site.
laura kelly
Dear Editor,
print will die if you print such short, un-archivable explorations. Nice ideas, short on form. And if there is form, of some kind, then does it matter what kind of print it is, mechanical or digital?
Jose Nieto
"The situation of print is analogous to that of painting after the invention of photography. It seems redundant, but will surely discover and embrace its niche."
I'm surprised that noone has pointed out that this was precisely Lewis Blackwell and Carson's point when they spoke of "The End of Print." Neither claimed that printing was dead. The idea was: if print is no longer needed to deliver information, it is free to become a subject for visual experimentation.
Of course, one could argue that they were premature in this pronouncement (and that Carson's "experimentation" was little more than clever marketing). Still, it's clear that, today, print works better as a vehicle for experiences, rather than simply information. And that's where print beats the Internet: screens cannot match the tactile experience of a paper object: the heft, the texture, the snap of a cover stock between thumb and forefinger. Print has sensual depth.
As designers, it is our responsibility to identify which projects would work better on screen and which would work better in print. Some things are going away – advertising postcards, perhaps newspapers. What remains can be made as beautiful and effective as possible.
Nick Krueger
Mark, In b2b marketing, digital has taken the lead. There's been a switch from web supporting print, to print supporting web. And I think it will be that way for a while.
Jeff is right, print will die a very slow death.
john
The one thing about print you can value: your layout, once complete, won't be messed with.
The cool little flair of the dinosaurs was ruined by my custom font settings in my browser.
yani
Print is far from dead, there are things that can't be simulated such as texture, or stock, or packaging.
Why do most people still read novels in hard copy?
Jeff Croft
...there are things that can't be simulated such as texture, or stock, or packaging.
But what about when these things can be simulated? Oh, it won't be soon -- but it will happen.
David MacGregor
Perhaps the medium isn't the message after all?
Arun
Newspapers aren't dying. They are EVOLVING. It's the same with print. And of course, print doesn't just include what you see on paper, even the keys on your keyboard are printed with characters, so you know which key does what (the technique is called screen printing, it lets you print on virtually any surface).
The box that your computer comes in is printed. And what about the photographs that you frame and keep in your bedrooms? Billboards, posters, hoardings that you see all around your city? The user manuals that came with your computer? Of course, you'd have PDF versions, but which do you prefer reading?
Every item that you see in a super market comes in a package that is PRINTED. Even t-shirts are printed on.
Worse comes to worse, why do you include CSS stylesheets for "print" in your websites??
Mark McGuinness
I agree with Jose Nieto. "The end of print" is deliberately ambiguous. As well as "the finish of print" it could also mean "the purpose of print" - so the purpose is changing, not ending.
Chris Mckee
I love print, it's much easier to thumb through a book while doing things on the web then trying to flick through an e-book.
Papers more of a tactile experience and in my humble opinion offers a wider range of options in both cut and finish that can be used to draw people in.
The webs great, but I still like to have a nice stockpile of paper, all different types, weights and finishes. Print Rocks.
Jonathan Barrett
Print isn't dying any more than fire died after the invention of the gas-powered central heating system.
We have another tool, another toy.
I'm enjoying the variety.
Besides, I haven't heard of any paper manufacturers going out of business lately.
MATTHEW ROSE
Fascinating discussion. I remain intrigued by the combination of print supporting the net and the net supporting print. We don't have to make a decision today, do we, about whether to bury our books and magazines. I agree with the poster above saying that it is design in the end that will will win. As for the other poster who said s/he couldn't read a book on screen, I've posted my novel, PLAN B, on my site in PDF format for free download. I've had about 1000 visits/downloads. Some people have written that they read it on screen, others have told me they've printed it out. Whatever they want, I'm happy to oblige.
A case in point is Seth Godin's IDEA VIRUS, first offered free on the net in a well-designed PDF. His publisher was furious he gave away the book. He was looking for readers, and readers were on the net. Some 200,000 downloads later, Godin published the book himself and sold hardcopies via Amazon. Needless to say Godin made a fortune (cutting out the publisher and using print on demand technology), selling not only to new readers, but to his net readers who wanted a hard copy! Brilliant.
Richard
As a designer, each project is different and the medium chosen for its delivery depends on the required outcome.
The problem with print is that it needs to be delivered/transported and stored somehow which is bad for the environment, costs time and money.
Print will never be obsolete for the reasons above, although it is currently is socially frowned upon as it carries a large carbon footprint.
We have also invested in e-marketing as it has trackable benefits upon which you gain valuable management information. It has little delivery costs and delivery times again saving money.
Lan
Everything dies including death itself. But maybe the net will die before print.
My recent student design brief is called "the internet won't stop printing", see if you can work out both meanings of that phrase.
Armin Vit
> congrats on being the only other site on the internet who dares to use apex serif!
Ahem.
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Great site idea.
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I have to admit though, it's unfortunate that the inaugural piece feels off-target, untimely and is far away from being poignant. I love me some Steve Heller as much as the next designer, but this argument is unsubstantiated and only deals with two very specific examples: One student thesis, and two friends of Steve over 60 who browse the news on the internet. Plus, there is no definition of "print" to be found. Are we talking magazines? Newspapers? Books? Marketing collateral? Menus left on stoops? Agendas printed ten-fold at useless meetings? Who cares, right? "Print is dead" sounds awesome, especially on the internet. Let's dig deeper – briefly speaking, of course.
dave
Hmmm.
Is there no one else that can write on design besides Steven Heller? much n'all as I respect the great man.
He must have a few drawers full of these "Print is Dead, discuss" topics at this stage. Fairly lazy in my opinion.
I guess a design Twitter is the next step. 10 words max. Then leave it up to the proles like us to populate the site with comments. Very smart. I'll get cracking on that website and have it up by end of the week ;) What's Steven Heller's email address?
Design for print will be a minority sport in 10 years.
Print will remain functional - books etc., and ephemeral - arty magazines, art books, oddities etc.,
My proposed next topic:
"design writing is dead, discuss"
Shane
I seriously doubt print is gonna die in my lifetime.
Right now I'm currently working as a Graphic Designer for a Dental MArketing company called Practice Cafe. Are bread and butter right now is Direct Mail campaigns, and they are still getting GREAT results.
At the same time, I am not stupid, so I am doing my best to learn as much about WEB and standards based XHTML & CSS based design. It's obviouse that, the internet is the fastest growing medium of communication these days.
By the way this is a FABULOUSE site.
stiven
Anyone who would have invested in the paper industry in the last 5-8 years would have made a great investment. Since we started to hear that "print is on it's way out" the industry has grown tremendously...
There are more magazines and news papers today than 10 years ago..
Avery Harris
if we took this offline and created a chain letter would we increase or decrease responses?
Keith
Ask that kid Steven talks about how he reads a book. :) Shit, if it's over say, 200 words, and I want to read it, I print it out. I can't see a day when anything long format doesn't have a print option at the very least.
Is Steven *really* claiming the end of print? I doubt it.
Anyway, it's clear there's a constant medium shift in how we communicate, and I don't think anyone really believes we'll see the end of print design (let alone print as a medium) any time soon. What's important to note is that designers, especially those whose primary experience lies in print, need to shift as well.
Tim
Soon enough print design as we know it will simply die out because no-one really cares to learn it anymore. It is already little more than a cute anachronism to most designers who have grown up with electronic media as their only primary medium (our numbers grow daily). The last 100 years of design history were very informative during college design classes, but all of the history being taught was from print design, except for a mention of Paula Scher's work. This is fine, it is obviously necessary to know our heritage.
I suspect in 100 years, everything I learned in classes about design history, and everything many of you older designers have seen happen (and done yourselves) will just be a foot note, little more than the setup for what will be relevant history to that generation's designers.
"Essay question: They communicated by putting ink on paper for about 500 years. Why? 50 pts."
steve heller
Mark Twain once said (in print) that if he had more time, he'd write shorter. In fact, I'm told that my response to this flood of responses should be shorter than the original piece. Armin accuses me of a faulty sampling. In the original piece I interviewed 50 people, of that number 40 were over 30 years old. Of that group 50 percent. . . [EDITOR'S NOTE: THIS RESPONSE HAD TO BE CUT TO ACCOMODATE SPACE RESTRAINTS]
Lefty
I think the term "dead" is the key here. Dead as in obsolete? Dead as in no longer inspiring? Dead as in not really going to be a significant part of the future? Print design will always be with us, how much will simply vary.
Designers should be well-rounded. There's no excuse for anyone to only be versed in print design or web design. The same visual principles apply, only the medium and deilvery is different.
The only thing that's dead is the American business model. Oh and TV. TV is sooo dead.
Lefty
I think the term "dead" is the key here. Dead as in obsolete? Dead as in no longer inspiring? Dead as in not really going to be a significant part of the future? Print design will always be with us, how much will simply vary.
Designers should be well-rounded. There's no excuse for anyone to only be versed in print design or web design. The same visual principles apply, only the medium and deilvery is different.
The only thing that's dead is the American business model. Oh and TV. TV is sooo dead.
A Edwards
If we dont have print what will we wrap our fish and chips in?
JCKim
Print is not dead but if a medium is not growing, it is dying.
Advertising dollars show the direction of any medium. Internet advertising is growing as a percentage of the total amount spent. Print advertising dollars are in decline so it looks like print is dying.
Jonathan
I've written 2 books for Penguin publishers. The combined print runs were around 10,000 books.
In 3 weeks I can get 10,000 reading my eBooks.
So words and numbers remain. The trick is to get them to appear in many forms, from mobile device to Canon printers...
Jonathan
Dave Cooper
I had a conversation with a client recently -- an independent magazine publisher. He's irritated by the web, like an older brother is irritated by a more popular little brother. He points to his magazine (which is a beautiful thing) and sneers "you can't do this on the web!"
Of course you can't -- any more than you can put a TV show on the radio.
But is radio dead? Not in *my* kitchen, it isn't. Changed? Yes. Diminished? Perhaps. Suffering from shitty ad revenues? Definitely.
But it's still an indispensable part of my day. So it is with print. Be not afraid!
Landon Godfrey
The argument SEEMS to be "print is dead," but if one takes it a bit further down that synthetic a posteriori slippery slope and says "words are dead," then one can see the problem with the "print is dead" argument: it can't die if it--print--exists as words, in whatever format/medium can best deliver them given whatever physical circumstances dictate at the time (war zone sans electricity & internet, for example). Yes, I'm willfully conflating print v. digital to the notion of "words," because I believe that literacy will persist. And beyond literacy, the love of words. And therefore the love for whatever displays them in the most beautiful way. Even if that means multiple modes of word delivery. Letterpress, website, newspaper, poster, book--I say yes to all of it. I know I'm not alone in not wanting to choose if I don't have to. And I think it will be this way for a long, long time. We still like those paintings in the Lascaux caves even though we can snap digital pics with our iPhones; yes? I want my samizdat and my abriefmessage.com, too.
David Comdico
Newspaper print is on the verge of exhaling its last breath; but it's death rattle, while ringing loudly, will not signal the death of print. Print will reconnoiter and decamp to safer ground. We need it. Talk to a lawyer. Or a doctor. Or an office worker. Or a book lover.
(Love seeing the word count as I write this...)
Dragos
As long as we need to feel, print will not be dead. To feel the paper in our hands, the texture of it, the smell of fresh ink, to admire the beauty of a big newspaper headline, the joy of giving a beautifully designed card to someone, to wait until that big poster finished printing before hanging it on the wall and feel proud about it; maybe we can't wait before those stickers are ready, to go out and have a wild sticker party after.
To just go on and buy a product because it has the best packaging you've seen in a while.
And that photo album that keeps our greatest moments close by...
Come on, we still need stick-it notes to remember stuff!
Print is warm, it feels more natural.
Until we stop letting our kids put their hands full of paint on that piece of paper and making their first masterpiece, then print will not be dead.
As long as we need to feel something, print will not be dead.
dan matutina
print is here to stay. :D print is still more personal than digital stuff done in personal computers. ;D
aubrey
print will never cease because it is a structure of society. if we are going to keep purchasing goods, printed materials will continue to be made.
print4l.
_trish
i like print because i can lay down on my couch and read it.
i love steven heller - he is so hot.
SEW
Print is shifting, just like all media. The combination of the elements is what strikes me. I heared the debate about the position of the theatre poster from the point of view of the designer and the marketeer: the use and effinciency of the poster is shifting, there will only be room for an admissioned design if the involved performance is sold out. There will be less room left for story telling, fairy tales or visual magic. Get loose from the 70's yellow birck road and Wizards of Oz. What I see is that the peolple want something they can relate to, something like a shadow. Print is expensive. For an experiment I will be canceling my internet provider, from then I'm forced to get to the library to find out what is more appealing, the book or the internet. I can already predict it will be the book, because internet is something you have to filter yourself, a book or poster has qualities you won't find surfing or browsing... so embrace the art of desiging before you're forgotten.
I'm afraid to find out internet will win because I can find my own path of interest to create My Tv.