by Stephen Beals

I have been reading many written views by pundits about how print will survive because it’s something you can touch and feel: that it gives the reader a sense of interaction with the words and a feeling of control. All of which is true.

They also say printed products do things online products cannot. You can clip a coupon from a magazine: although you can also clip coupons online, you still have to print them out…for now.

I’m speaking of general commercial printing. Package printing, wide format and certain types of print, such as thermography, foil printing are products e-print can’t really replace.

Still, things are changing and they are changing rapidly. Kids are much more comfortable reading from a screen than most adults. Older folks (like me) still print out long documents because we want to hold them in our hands and underline things with a highlighter.

Electronic media delivery is developing rapidly, and if we think print will forever allow people to “do things you can’t do electronically,” think again. iPhone apps are a perfect example of using new media to do things that are intuitive, interactive and involve touch and feel: just like print only different – and in some ways better.  Read more... (693 words, estimated 2:46 mins reading time)