Print Remains a Top Business Opportunity

TrendWatch Graphic Arts has been tracking "profitably use the technologies we've already invested in" as a business challenge for creatives. After all, it's one thing to keep up with technology, but quite another to actually make it profitable.

This challenge has tended to track along with "keeping up with technology," and the four-point spike in the latest survey also suggests that new technological investments have to justify themselves to a greater extent than they have in the past. Creatives love new technological toys, but those toys increasingly have to pull their weight.

Looking at creatives' sales opportunities, it is apparent that the golden age of Web page design is over. In Summer 2000, "Web page design" was the number-one sales opportunity for design and production firms, but now it has dropped to 38%, the number-four sales opportunity.

"Collateral print projects," traditionally the number-one opportunity, is still on an upward trajectory, and with 62% of creative firms citing it, it is at the second-highest level in the history of the survey.

An upstart opportunity, "cross media communications campaigns," has been increasing by leaps and bounds for the past three surveys and is now at 46%, its highest point ever.

Print remains the top sales opportunity, but the media mix in culture and in business is increasing. More media options exist now than ever before, and among the likes of the Web, wireless technology, e-mail, mobile devices, and Palm Pilots, print is increasingly becoming just one medium among many for the dissemination of content. This principle also applies to the Web.

The trick for creative firms, and for the printers who work with them, will be to decide which medium is right for which project, and design accordingly.