recently attended the Challenge of Change, the National Conference of Printing Industries New Zealand in Taupo. Joining me was Wayne McDougall, Alfred Johns Pty Ltd and National President of the Graphic Arts Services Association of Australia. We were there to take in the excellent technical and business programme and to connect with the New Zealand industry and its representative membership body. Both our aims were admirably achieved.
It has been six years since PINZ has held a national gathering of this type and they pulled out all stops. It is a credit to the organisation and its many helpers that everything went off without a hitch. Whether it was the long break between events; the excellent line-up of speakers; the professional skills of the organisers or the great venue, the nearly 200 delegates were in a very positive frame of mind. It was a breath of fresh air from the negative sentiment from parts of the industry in Australia. Well-done PINZ… well done the New Zealand graphic arts industry.
There were many good presentations at the “Challenge of Change” conference including wise commentary from Andy Tribute, UK based and international graphic arts consultant. Fresh and thought provoking presentations were also delivered by USA graphic arts couple Trish and Mark Witkowski.
Trish, a senior designer for a major East Coast ad agency, also has a passion for print folding … yes she has written the definitive book on over 180 different paper folding styles. We had a lot of fun over dinner as she showed me how to do a double concertina fold of my table napkin. On design her clear message was – service providers work with your designers, include them in the decision making process… help them deliver you print ready files.
Designers are being pressed by clients and finance execs to keep costs down. Show your design clients how they can save time and money by using your expertise, and in most cases they’ll stick with you. Husband Mark Witkowski is Digital Technology Strategist at the Sheridan Group. As he put it his main role is to enable organisational change via technology. Here’s one employee and one firm that’s not afraid of trying new things. Describing the US$700bn global printing industry, the third largest user of energy and resources and with over 200,000 establishments world wide, this is an industry of great significance to most industrialised countries. He emphasised that while print in the US today accounted for nearly 50 per cent of all media spending, this was rapidly changing. The web, phone, PDA, TV, radio compete rigorously for marketing budgets so printers needed to build a competitive edge; move beyond production and into other parts of the customer’s business and to listen to their needs. Mark looked briefly at emerging online technologies in the area of brochure design; folding templates; pre-flighting/image preparation and ad preparation. His presentation can be accessed on www.foldfactory.com/nz04.
Andy Tribute, well-known graphics commentator once again covered an enormous amount of ground in respect to what happening in the industry now and what’s on the way. Indeed too much for me to cover in this article suffice to say that its well worth the trip to his website at www.attributes.co.uk and downloading his conference presentations on “Trends in Technology for Printing & Publishing” and “The Why Wherefore & Reality of JDF”.
While I said at the outset that the mood of the PINZ conference was very positive I was amused by one printer delegate who responded to Trish Witkowski’s suggestion to education and inform design clients that “if I tell them too much they’ll want to do it themselves”. Printers in recent years have been falling over themselves to take pre-press and design work in-house. A reality GASAA and its diminishing number of trade-house members have had to accept. The only true way to prosper in the industry is to partner clients and add value to their dealings with you.
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