Print Business: for information, inspiration and insight
Without Gareth Ward there would be no Print Business. His name is synonymous with print worldwide. Who is he and why is his contribution to the print industry so important?
There are those that say that the only reason Print Business editor Gareth Ward wears his black hat is to keep a lifetime of knowledge of the print industry from escaping.
A lifetime is no exaggeration. His grandfather George was as well known for his work in the ASLP union in his time as Gareth is for his journalism. His father, Reg, was a respected packaging printer and Gareth grew up with album covers that didn’t quite match those his friends bought in shops, nor indeed the records inside. Reg latterly joined MY Group. Even though he is in his 80s, print industry elders respectfully ask after him. When Gareth’s younger brother Nigel was born, the late Bob Gavron (who made St Ives what it was and later became Lord Gavron) sent a gift basket full of the new-on-the-market Babygros.
Needless to say Nigel went into print and for a long time was a coatings chemist at Harrisons then De La Rue. After a spell at Tullis Russell, he escaped into airbags.
Gareth was unsurprisingly maverick at grammar school, causing his English teacher to comment: “I don’t know why you’re bothering with English A level, Ward. You can’t write.” Gareth picked up that gauntlet, passed the A level and was the only one in the school to attain the highest possible score in the Oxbridge Use of English exam. He did a BA in European Studies at Queen Mary College London and added, to paraphrase Peter Sarstedt, a qualification he got from the Sorbonne.
He decided on a career in journalism. He also decided that he would rather be a big fish in a small pond. With his family credentials, he arrived at the respected weekly Printing World as a trainee reporter on 14 February 1983. He was made editor in 1989 at the age of 29, an extraordinarily young age for such a role at a flagship weekly trade magazine at that time.
No matter how good they are, editors do have a shelf life and after 15 years he joined the fledgling monthly Print Business as editor for its second issue. He had spotted the gap in the market for a magazine that really examined the business side of printing – not the accounts and HR but the reality of making a good business out of putting ink on paper.
In 2010, after a shotgun management buyout, he and his partner Debbie Ward set about creating their version of a modern business magazine for, post 2008, a rapidly changing printing industry. This is when Print Business really cemented itself as the bedrock magazine that puts printers first and foremost.
In 2015 a groundbreaking ad-free website was launched which again put the visitor first while providing top class SEO for suppliers. The model was ahead of its time and some of its features have become commonplace. However, the absence of ads remains paramount as no ads means fewer trackers and fewer trackers means a high engagement metric – confirmed at a 2023 publishing conference as the most prized metric by top level delegates from the Financial Times, the Telegraph, the Sun and the Daily Mail. The website was updated in 2020 with a fresh design and a partial paywall and subscription options, given there are no ads.
In 2022 it was decided to completely break the mould of traditional trade magazines. The business journalism is still of paramount importance but the whole look and feel is that of an aspirational lifestyle magazine. Most trade mags have legacy low production values, printed on the cheapest paper in the cheapest format, without any thought for the impression that gives.
The printing industry is a supremely creative industry and it deserves a magazine that that celebrates that, one that printers would be proud to put in their reception for their customers to look at. To say: this is print, this is what we do. Doesn’t it look good? Doesn’t it feel good? Isn’t print great?
The essence of Print Business will remain. Putting printers first, guiding them through changes, hard times, good times and pandemics with calm, thoughtful and easily digestible editorial. We will still be going to see printers in their factories, talking their language and telling their stories.
Gareth Ward's Comment and other stories
As the response to the ezine that we send out first thing on a Monday morning shows, editor Gareth Ward’s three paragraph musings on the printing industry really grab everyone’s attention. Always topical and sometimes esoteric, not a week goes by with someone commenting on his comment. As it is so popular we don’t publish it online until our ezine subscribers have had first dibs. A free subscription will get you on the list (no third parties, one email a week, promise).
Gareth also produces a long form comment in the magazine every issue – though you will need a paid subscription. Instead of three paragraphs he has the best part of three pages to go in depth into the industry he has lived, breathed and documented for more than three decades.
During the pandemic, his words prompted a printer to phone up to request a PDF version “to send to my MP!” This prompted the publication of Comment: The Pandemic In Print, a record in book form of 2020-2021 via Gareth’s contemporaneous comment pieces.
Gareth is also in demand for hosting events – his ringmaster skills are legendary – as there isn’t a subject he cannot speak on himself or direct to the right member of a panel.
His depth of knowledge is often mined in consultancy form. His reports are scrupulously independent and pinpoint accurate.
The rates are reasonable given his depth and breadth of knowledge, though this can be as low as the price of an altbier at the Irish Pub during Drupa.