Anyone with any exposure to printing–or service industries in general–will know the above to be true. And it doesn’t matter how nicely (or not) you ask, it doesn’t change (though, if you spend too much time asking, you’ll be down to one or none available). It’s usually better for everyone concerned that this fact is accepted as soon as possible.

Artists like Kaws, Dalek, alife and everyone else in the sneeker / streetwear world are prolifically churning out collectable pieces that stay on the shelves for a matter of moments.

The future of printing is “>here.

Rising paper prices don’t worry me. Digital printing presses stealing market share don’t worry me.  Not even the suicidal price-cutting by my competitors worries me (that much). What keeps me awake at night (a slight exaggeration perhaps but nevertheless a concern) is the fact that there are so few skilled printers being trained nowadays. The average age of a properly-apprenticed machine minder is somewhere around the mid forties – that means that unless we do something soon, within the next twenty years, there will be a dangerous shortage of skilled printers and finishers.

Now, I know technology has made the modern day printing press slightly easier to operate, certainly faster and definitely less physically taxing on the minder, but the skill and experience needed to produce truly excellent print (and the same applies to finishing) can only be delivered through experience. And that’s a hard earned experience – three long, tough years or more in some cases. This is not an industry for the faint hearted or the get rich quick brigade!

Manufacturing (yes, I’m from the school of thought that hangs onto the notion that printers are manufactures) is not appealing to school leavers and why should it be: long hours, physically demanding, often thank-less, wrong end of the value chain and so on vs light air-conditioned offices, staff canteens, blue-sky thinking sessions, chemistry meetings and that gorgeous Andrea in accounts!

I wish I knew the answer.  But I can see what the future might hold if we don’t do something now. Increased labour costs and reduced quality both in terms of output and general perception, loss of support service jobs and yet another strand of British manufacturing gone the way of many others.

I know that pressure on margins has never been greater, especially in today’s over-supplied highly demanding market. What proprietor can afford time or money on training? Why take the risk when more often than not there is little or no return on the investment. (Ahh a wider societal discussion there me thinks!)  Murray W. Arbiter

Living in America is like living in England in the seventies before Terrence Conran and all the graphic designers made everything look the same.

In the UK it’s hard to find to something that’s not had the hand of the graphic designer passed over it, whereas in America, it’s still seen as an option. And though it makes England seem very considered and polished, it also makes it seem very sterile. There’s so little of our vernacular language left, it’s hard to imagine how much texture it must have given us.

Welcome to Artomatic. Again. The idea for this came after a conversation with Murray and we both felt there seemed to be a renewed interest, fascination even, with print and what it can do. More so than there was three or four years ago, which is a good and encouraging sign.

In 1998, our good friend Malcolm Garrett outlined a scenario: that in the same way that painting went from ‘paint-this-view-from-my-window’ to revered cultural icon, print would enjoy a reevaluation as a result of digital communications; that people would grow to value the things they could hold in their hands as electronics enter more of our lives.

Timing? I know the future’s digital, but something seems to be happening in the non-digital space. This year, there seems to be a reinvigorated interest in making printed pieces. Who knows if it’s clients demanding it, designers pushing it or everybody realising there’s things you can only do physically? Whether this is the start of Malcolm’s prediction or merely a blip, where here to be part of it and help it along, if we can.