"More and more, we will see printing based materials outside the corporate and retail world, permeate the domestic, institutional, and public spheres. In the public's mind, printing will need to detach itself definitively from paper, its flatness and its durability. As it has happened with the screen, printing needs to be democratised."
This is the belief of Felipe Araujo, owner/designer at the Egue y Seta interior design agency, and echoes what many have been thinking for some time now. But it’s hard work getting the message out there that print is about much more than ink on paper and a communications delivery tool. We have the technology to deliver a plethora of print applications but do we have a cohesive strategy as an industry - or even from the wide-format sector within that - to make a big enough impact in a world that tends to have a very outmoded idea of what print is all about. And is that partly our own fault?
In this issue you can read an interview with Glyn Farrow, CEO of the St Bride Foundation, in which he tackles the question of how the organisation squares the desire to preserve and celebrate print’s craft-based heritage with the need to promote the very different industry of today.
At Image Reports we’re doing our best to get the message out there that print (especially when produced via the likes of flatbed UV inkjet technology, which has massively extended its scope) provides a fabulously creative platform for all sorts of design. The Think Bigger Gallery of jobs now links through from the magazine website to a series of Pinterest mood boards we’ve developed to put ideas right bang in front of creatives. So keep inspirational pieces coming through to us – we just need a printable quality image and a few words about the job.
Also, we mentioned in the January/February issue, that in March Image Reports will publish its inaugural Think Bigger Report, sponsored by Fujifilm. The publication will go directly to designers and has been put together to stimulate a dialogue between them and the print sector about how wide-format print can be harnessed as an innovative medium. If you also want to get your hands on that report you can register here.
Editor, Lesley Simpson
lesley.simpson@imagereportsmag.co.uk
Tel. 01932 707173
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