It is a source of immense irritation to me that people (who should know better) constantly pillory the printing industry for conservatism and unwillingness to change. Where have they been for the past three or four decades?
Most of the critics have not experienced the responsibility of investing hundreds of thousands (sometimes millions) of pounds in plant and machinery and ensuring a proper return on capital. It is daunting to contemplate some of the management decisions that have been made with great aplomb and vision.
One needs to be reminded that over the past thirty or more years the industry has converted wholesale from letterpress to lithographic printing, while pre-press has undergone a radical change from photomechanical analogue to advanced digital methods. Once pre-press was dominated by handicraft techniques and mechanical equipment, as opposed to the electronic and computerised procedures prevailing nowadays. Complete trades have disappeared, instanced by electrotyping, stereotyping and process engraving. What more do these remote, pontificating, and theorising critics expect or want?
Printing has managed technological and commercial change with some panache and effectiveness that compares favourably with some other sectors of the national economy. As production techniques, markets, and competition evolve, I am confident that the printing industry will continue to flourish.
Perhaps the worst omission of the industry over the past twenty years has been a failure to invest in substantive training: a byproduct of Thatcherism.
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