Hey design community! My name's Nicole and I'm a graphic designer based out of Edmonton, Alberta working for these dudes in Lacombe. I'll be blogging every so often on matters close to my heart: print design. Above all, I'd love to facilitate a conversation on design... so whether you agree or disagree with me, please just speak up!
It seems every other week, a web designer tells me the jig is up, my days as a print designer are numbered. Didn't you hear? About this thing called the internets? It's going to make print design obsolete. Some days, amid facebook and twitter and the increasing amount of time I spend online, I worry they're right.
But most days I smile smugly and let them talk, secure in knowing that my job is safe because one thing the digital world can't replicate is tangibility. They can't manufacture the emotional resonance that comes with turning pages or holding a well-designed business card in your hand.
More than that, print design is evolving. They said that television would kill radio. It didn't, it just serves a different purpose now. As print designers we need to focus on doing the things we do, and doing them better. With purpose. Let's not get hung up on what the internet is taking away from our livelihood and instead look at the needs it's creating, what it can't do. Some schools of thought in design say simplicity is the key: you must remove, remove, remove. If you don't need it, it shouldn't be there.
Let's remove the antiquated practice of mass mail-outs and create better promotional materials that our audience will want to hang onto instead of put out with the recycling. Let's remove the idea that the web and print have to compete, let them work in tandem. By removing the excess that web can obviously do better than print, we can all focus, redirect our clients' energy (and budget) and instead showcase print design's strengths.
Change is not a new story though and it doesn't need to be scary. In most cases I find it exciting and energizing. As a designer it is just in me to love solving the next problem.
Nice post. Looking forward to more.
I doubt print will ever die, but look around at the industry and look at how it's going. How much us your studio printing? How are print publications? It's decreasing dramatically for sure.
The analogy between radio and TV is one, but instead I'll offer another that I feel is more accurate: Film vs. Digital cameras. Film cameras still have their place, talking to pro photographers, some still shoot film when the clients needs require it. But the majority of the industry, professional and consumer, have switched to digital as it best achieves their goals.
Print will never die, but one thing I think is dying is the notion of the print only designer. Designers now need to know about interactive design patterns, accessibility, user experience, user testing and other tools for designing and building great interactive projects.
I'm with Steve (not only 'cause he has a cool name). The developments in what's happening online are exciting and invigorating (talk to a designer/developer about what they are doing with jQuery or the possibilities with HTML5!) and we (both as an industry and as individuals) need to make sure that we are up on all these issues.
Solving clients problems will always involve print and interactive solutions and we need to make sure we can do both.
Good design is adaptable, for change is inevitable.
Glad to have you with us on the National Blog Nicole. Looking forward to your next post!
I am reminded of the guy that stood in the middle of the street with a sign saying the stop, the end is near and got run over by people too busy to believe.
So what I recommand is to go to a book store and pickup some HTML, Java, and Flash books and LEARN.
Go paper!
Just curious exactly where you get your information that firstly I am a "print-specialized graphic designer,", in fact I have been a Creative Director for a great many years for both National and International agencies and second that I am as you so eloquently put it "lazy enough to learn new skills and adapt to this ongoing changing industry" (I have adapted to this industry since 1972). I work in print, web, television, and social media. Media's are ever changing. The forgoing are valid vehicles for presenting our clients message, all in different ways. Non are the only method.
By the way, I also code and understand several languages including html, asp, java, actionscript and css to mention only a few. Your recommendations to pick up some books are also silly, I have upgraded myself continuously.
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Sooner or later, web design will eventually be the "main category" of graphic design, this is inevitable. I understand what you got to say as a print-specialized graphic designer, who is lazy enough to learn new skills and adapt to this ongoing changing industry, but unfortunately, almost everything that we visualize is becoming web-based and screen-based.
So what I recommand is to go to a book store and pickup some HTML, Java, and Flash books and LEARN.
Steve M, interesting point about film vs. digital cameras. Often "outdated" technology is appropriated by the artistic community... Painting used to serve the purpose that cameras serve now (capturing a portrait, for example) and once painting was no longer useful for that purpose, abstract art emerged. Polaroids, pin-hole cameras, the list goes on-- even old Nintendos have been used to create art! Letterpress is now often used for artistic short-run prints or for things like wedding invitations since digital methods took over the commercial market. Food for thought.
Lornce, glad to hear it! Your anecdote has a point... our end will be near if we dwell on it and let it run us over.
Nate, I believe that print design won't be an outdated industry and those of us that love print design won't have to learn web design unless we have an interest in it. That being said, learning is something every professional (regardless of industry) should take seriously. No one should be content sitting on their educational laurels. But, if Flash is the way the internet is going, we're all doomed. ;)
I believe there are instances of print declining in popularity / prevalence but have you noticed there are still bookstores with full shelves and magazine racks full of numerous seemingly redundant magazines? I think you can even find reprinted updated versions of David Carson's oft quoted first book.
On the same note websites also die. I remember seeing my first Flash site some 15 years or so ago and thought: Wow! Now when a Flash site starts loading I reach for my Command + W keys.
It all comes down to content—largely that which seeks to generate income; ie. advertising—and the media which best delivers it—whatever it may be at any given moment because it is all about moments and what is popular during that moment—will win.
Do graphic designers need to be web designers? Just like a medical degree doesn't mean specialised knowledge in all corporeal woes: Not necessarily. But certainly the more you know the more work you can monopolise and—again—the more money you can earn.
What think everyone should consider, though, is that things such as paper and electricity are both somewhat exhaustible resources but, I suspect, if things go pear shaped we'll have the printed word long after we have a website driven by the most updated technology.
Vive le crayon!
Its true I think that in the future, our correspondance with each other will be lost in the perpetual well of e-mails, not like the good old days of hand written letters. Our grandkids aren't likely to be reading grandpas e-mail letters to grandma. Will all our art gallery paintings and exhibits one day be on digital monitors? If people make use of printed or tangible media, there will always be a use for it, i hope.
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