Somehow the long lazy and warm sunny afternoons that are supposed to come with the summer months have not arrived this year. Instead it has been rain, wind and, for those outside the UK, fire. But we still hanker after the idylls of summer, cool drink, fresh water for a quick dip, perhaps a hammock and simply dreaming the day away. Such recuperation is as vital to our health and wellbeing as any fitness regime at the gym. The pandemic and lockdowns have served to remind us that being in the open air, stripped of our work habits, is important for our greater wellbeing.
These are times to think, to ponder, to escape the ceaseless pressure to grow a business, how to win new work or simply survive. The logic of technology is that we can do what we do faster, with greater automation and we can therefore push more work through the system more efficiently than ever before. Technology’s ability too, to be effective with shorter runs, goes hand in hand this rush to produce low cost junk print. It is all too easy to become fast print outlets – much as the food business has created endless streams of fast food outlets that meet an immediate bodily need but are hardly satisfying in the long term. We need the leisurely lunch, the relaxed dinner, to embrace the Slow Food movement as a counter to headlong charge of convenience. It may not be the most efficient way to eat, but it is far more satisfying to the human spirit, consumption and mindfulness together.
Likewise in work. It is not production of the 5,000 A4 leaflets for next to nothing for a customer who is driven purely by price and Trust Pilot that we recall with satisfaction. It is the complex job, the one where months of planning, selecting the right images, typeface and substrates, the way the job is embellished with varnish or foil and the satisfaction of the client and indeed of the end consumer that matters and is remembered. These are the Slow Print jobs, choosing not the most efficient means of production, but the ones requiring the greatest levels of skill and collaboration. And there needs to be more of them. If the online job is all about the process and the automation to generate a slim financial profit, the Slow Print job too is about a process, that is the journey from the idea that comes one lazy afternoon while in a hammock to the delivery and unwrapping several months or more later. One job delivers a profit that is measurable on a balance sheet. The other delivers a profit that is simply immeasurable.
In praise of the inefficiencies in print
Somehow the long lazy and warm sunny afternoons that are supposed to come with the summer months have not arrived this year. Instead it has been rain, wind and, for those outside the UK, fire. But we still hanker after the idylls of summer, cool drink, fresh water for a quick dip, perhaps a hammock and simply dreaming the day away. Such recuperation is as vital to our health and wellbeing as any fitness regime at the gym. The pandemic and lockdowns have served to remind us that being in the open air, stripped of our work habits, is important for our greater wellbeing.
These are times to think, to ponder, to escape the ceaseless pressure to grow a business, how to win new work or simply survive. The logic of technology is that we can do what we do faster, with greater automation and we can therefore push more work through the system more efficiently than ever before. Technology’s ability too, to be effective with shorter runs, goes hand in hand this rush to produce low cost junk print. It is all too easy to become fast print outlets – much as the food business has created endless streams of fast food outlets that meet an immediate bodily need but are hardly satisfying in the long term. We need the leisurely lunch, the relaxed dinner, to embrace the Slow Food movement as a counter to headlong charge of convenience. It may not be the most efficient way to eat, but it is far more satisfying to the human spirit, consumption and mindfulness together.
Likewise in work. It is not production of the 5,000 A4 leaflets for next to nothing for a customer who is driven purely by price and Trust Pilot that we recall with satisfaction. It is the complex job, the one where months of planning, selecting the right images, typeface and substrates, the way the job is embellished with varnish or foil and the satisfaction of the client and indeed of the end consumer that matters and is remembered. These are the Slow Print jobs, choosing not the most efficient means of production, but the ones requiring the greatest levels of skill and collaboration. And there needs to be more of them. If the online job is all about the process and the automation to generate a slim financial profit, the Slow Print job too is about a process, that is the journey from the idea that comes one lazy afternoon while in a hammock to the delivery and unwrapping several months or more later. One job delivers a profit that is measurable on a balance sheet. The other delivers a profit that is simply immeasurable.
Gareth Ward
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