Impressions made by print design
Gadgets Channel / Bullz-Eye Home
For the new age digital media, the dinosaur that was printed media, seems so far gone that it is not often even worth mentioning or remembering. Reading, too, has become a less necessary skill for the current designers of the digital world, who often distill information into graphics. Furthermore, the act of printing causes damage to environmental resources that are becoming increasingly valuable, lowering the profit margin for corporations that still value holding paper in hand. Online printing is just one way to help reduce the impact of our reliance on printed material.
Still, it is important to recognize that we are far from finished with the old school means of disseminating information, printed ink on hot-pressed paper. Although people now prefer to shop online for their covetous books, they have moved their book discussions primarily online, where it is easier to find highly specialized book clubs. Huge chains like Borders have suffered the impact of the digital "print" version of information, where often design, and not location, is king.
Although the facts are clear in shopper studies and statistics, no one can deny that the impact of free information online has been the cause of leading American design magazines like ID, and others, to go into the red. Even the New York Times has suffered so much as a result of free online reading that it will be charging a fee for news in 2011.
Excellent typography and unique design are imperative for comfort and ease-of-reading, and the online versions of popular printed publications usually are best at this fine art of visual appeal. With well-designed options like the London Review online, and The Book, there is no reason for people to leave reading, as well as printed books, in the archives for historians to recall. One can only leave the act of reading in the past if he also seeks to abscond from culture itself.
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