With the increased use of digital media, like Kindle and E-book, the popularity of traditional printing media such as litho print, magazines and even simple things such as printed tickets, brochures and greeting cards has diminished. Children nowadays prefer to use their phones to read books, rather than holding actual hard copies in their hands. They prefer to read or watch the news from their gadgets instead of getting a newspaper or magazine. They are growing up without knowing how to do things the old way… The traditional way!
What’s more fascinating is also the fact that the success of a media nowadays is not determined by its supposed circulation, its followers or the number of likes they received in each post they made online, but the world of COVID one thing we known is that ‘Likes’ don’t create sales, nor keep staff employed.
Things have also changed in the key defining items which are personal, Business card, or invite worlds. Back in the day, many grooms and brides to be would have invites printed for their wedding, these days however people are mostly using digital media to do the same thing. With a simple click of a button, they can send a pre-made invitation in an email rather than going through the painstaking process of designing it and printing out physical copies… but nothing still rivals or compares with that hands-on personal approach… click-click its easy life.
Another reason why people think that printed media is slowly dying is because of the environmental issue. Why print and use paper and that marketing manager anchor point .. ‘that budget’, when we can send it to each other through the internet? By reducing the use of paper they think will be saving trees.
But there are still many who believe that good old letterpress is here to stay and nonfacture one on those, because it’s an art form in itself. Letterpress fans feel that there’s just something special about the process of printing on paper, with ink.
And for them, they’re right. There IS something special about letterpress printing; it just seems to be hard to pinpoint exactly what that quality is. Is it the hand-crafted feel? The old-fashioned look and feel? The balance and contrast of foils to paper stocks like Keaykolour and Colourplan. What is it that makes letterpress so special and worth all the fuss, when in fact it’s just an art form with a long history?
