Once upon a time we as humans were truly tribal creatures as people would gather around the fire and listen to the words of the village elder. Much folklore would never leave the tribe, maybe a stray story would become legend as a traveller would sit in for a night and move on the next day but otherwise everything would be verbally passed on from generation to generation who each may add a tiny twist and flavour of their own.
Moving along the timeline we've pioneered the manufacture of Papyrus, Parchment, Hemp, and more. At the essence of these processes is the use of a natural substance such as plants or animal skin to produce a material that can be used for wrapping, writing, artistry, anything!
Print is Culture
Wikipedia tells us that papyrus was manufactured as far back as the third millennium BC. Material uncovered from this age shows us the impressive craftsmanship of this age but more impressively the resilience of information. If it wasn't for these early forms of print a vast treasure trove of cultural heritage would truly have been lost to the sands of time.
A few examples:
- The American declaration of independence was written on parchment and survives to this day.
- The Bible is in all likelihood the most (re)-printed and known book that's known to have been with us for quite some time courtesy of the Gutenberg press.
- Manuscripts such as the Codex Leicester
This is but the tip of the iceberg why print is timeless and why you should realise how spoiled we are in this day and age for being able to grab a piece of paper, put it in a printer, press a button and out come your thoughts frozen in time.
Before the telegram, before the radio, before the television, before the internet, before any of these modern innovations print was the only method of sharing information across vast distances.
Through my travels, I have come under the impression that a lot of businesses assume print is a dying solution to their marketing collateral and are beginning to see print as a medium that's no longer relevant. They say the ‘Web‘ is the future, the ‘be all’ of information sharing. I do agree, web plays a huge role in our current times, however don’t forget where we came from.
Print is Beauty
Print when done properly can be as beautiful as making a painting. In fact there's a bevy of similarities! Within print design we have an endless supply of colours, fonts, paper stocks, paper sizes, textures, and more to choose from. The composition of the design elements, the wording, how the folds are made, there really isn't a single method that suits all print material.
You're probably familiar with the experience of having a few business cards strewn about on your desk, maybe on occasion you'll pick one up and fiddle with it while your on the phone or when you are lost in thought. You may not realise it consciously but quite often you'll pick the one that's the most engaging and this only tends to happen with cards that have received a proper branding treatment and send a clear message.
This is something that won't happen with an email signature or a PDF invoice hiding in "My Documents" archived 10 folders deep. You can't touch it, you can't 'see' it, you can't smell it. Everything that makes print 'human' is lost in the digital domain.
An impression that lasts, is an impression that has a physical presence.
Print is Lemot
It saddens us to see that a lot of investment goes into designing and creating an effective communication process with a corporate website yet why then does the printed brochure go something like; heaps of information in small area, poorly processed photographs, quick, press print!
There is no beauty in this, it's just fodder and communicates nothing!
Take it back a step and think about what your business requires. A look book? portfolio? examples of your work? a kick ass price-list that people will want to take home just because it looks good? Any of these are a powerful ways to communicate to your potential clients what you stand for and what you are on about. When done properly it not only serves as an excellent tool to get your message across in a form that your clients are familiar with, but it can also boost your online presence. Print and the Web can work in harmony if you want it to and if you want let us do it for you.
Our name is Lemot, and we like to make beautiful things that last.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus
- http://www.usconstitution.net/constfaq_a8.html
- Q145. "What kind of paper was the Constitution written on?"
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutenberg_Bible
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Leicester
- The Codex Leicester (also briefly known as Codex Hammer) is a collection of largely scientific writings by Leonardo Da Vinci.