Printers face threats not only from a bad economy
but also misguided political policy.

Last week I wrote about how jobs are flying out the door to China and other far-east print-shops, for print-work which will be used locally in North America or Europe. This was posted in a piece titled, “Print is not dead. Neither is outsourcing. China.” Now I want to expand on that (But reading some of the comments on the Linkedin link within that post are well worth the clicking.), especially with regards to this whole “green movement” which is going on.

First, let me make it clear, I love God’s creation and especially nature. We certainly have responsibilities not to pollute and cause intentional harm to our ecosystems. Thus, perhaps it is fair pushing the green thing on printers, to have them use less dangerous chemicals and inks in their commercial print shops. But why the double-standard when it comes to outsourcing and the environment or the green movement?

The host government aside in these outsourcing nations, how does our US government (Any “western” gov.’t really.) allow print outsourcing to go on at all; especially in light of these environmental effects? On that note, we read:  Read more... (512 words, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)

Updated with formatted table of Twitter Listing:

Printers who Twitter (version 2)
Prepress, print-shops and industry associations or professionals in print media who are active on Twitter.com
(Want it as a formatted Excel sheet? Tweet us; or comment below..)

Based on popular demand, we have expanded this list of print-type people on Twitter with those that RT (Re-Tweet), DM  (Direct Message) on Twitter or commented on our blog. We can always do a v3, so let us know if you are a graphic layout printer or prepress professional and not on this list!

NEW ENTRIES:
(Added locations, as requested by some.)
PRINTERS, PREPRESS – shops and individuals:  Read more... (1366 words, estimated 5:28 mins reading time)

Dave Matthews heads up the prepress department at Progressive Printing, a Martinsburg, WV commercial printing facility. Long plagued by Microsoft Publisher files submitted by a typical (in the commercial art print poster world) customer base that’s ill-equipped and uneducated in the process of preparing digital content for print, Matthews discovered Markzware’s PUB2ID plug-in.  It should be noted that this plug-in also works for printable greeting card, printable business cards, printing posters, printable greeting cards, print postcard printing jobs, etc.
Markzware (the originators of FlightCheck) followed up with Matthews some months later to find out how the application had helped solve some of the conversion problems he’d been facing when dealing with Microsoft Publisher files regarding print art poster and art poster printing, and he was gracious to share his thoughts:

Markzware: When was the company founded?

Matthews: 1995.

Markzware: Is Progressive Printing’s clientele mostly local to the Martinsburg area? Or does your client base extend beyond the local market?

Matthews: About 60% of our clients are in the Martinsburg area. The other 40% is all over the US.  Read more... (787 words, estimated 3:09 mins reading time)