Print Industry in Digital age

Just like the experience of movie industry that I saw in “Side by Side”, the print industry also has experienced a great change from traditional to digital. In the past, printing industry used something like “ linotype, hot type, cold type, galley proofs, proof sheets, veloxes, matts, right reading emulsion side sown”(Custer, “The New Printing Industry”) and so on, but today, the industry become computerized, it means it become a kind of digital world. Just like movie, people combine the work mostly in computer but not the lab. The print industry was born with Gutenberg (“Changes In the Print Industry”). Gutenberg invented the printing press, it is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium, thereby transferring the ink. However, when we enter the digital age, digital print allows a customer to print small quantities of high targeted pieces on substrates that we never dreamed we could print. Just like making movie, over 100 years, people always used the film to make movie and the film only allowed them to shoot 10 minus, so everybody should keep a high level attention in this 10 minus. But the digital technology provides them longer time to shoot and less pressure for everyone in shooting scene. Very like the movie industry, the equipment in lab changed a lot. “Smaller print shops have advanced into the digital age and have found a niche” said by Ted Walker, who is a owner of The Pressroom at 1879 S. Acoma in Denver, has been in this business for 13 years (Custer, “The New Printing Industry”). Since the smaller pressroom had no much big equipment and that would be much eailer for them to changed their equipment to digital equipment in order to provide their customer better service and higher quality work. The digital printer could provide high resolution, short run, high quality and four-color work. That helps the owner to decrease the overhead cost and keep a quick turnaround. The cost also another advantage of the digital technology provided. In digital world, it allows people decreased a lot of cost, such as marking. In the print industry, digital technology just need small lots marketing and allows start-up companies to do a short run, four-color brochures and get their message out without having to printing a closet full of material (Custer, “The New Printing Industry”). Because the Internet provides a new forms of digital communications that were not thought about just a few years ago. Now, we can use email to make marketing and some tools like PDF or something else. However, in the past, people need to purchase a big, expensive machine to printing, and had to pay for marketing in order to attract customers. That would cost a lot and made an entry barrier for this industry. By this way, digital technology changed the business way within the industry. Similar to movie industry, in the process of transition to digital, some people in the print industry did not survive and some of them survive. These survival lead the industry become booming and make it more effective and quality.
Work Reference

Custer, Ken. “The New Printing Industry”. http://www.ad-mkt-review.com/public_html/docs/fs107.html

“Changes In the Print Industry” (June 12,2010). http://www.printmediacentr.com/2010/06/changes-in-the-print-industry/

“Printing Press”, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press