I’m a walking contradiction. I’m a big advocate of print and paper but I love the digital world too. In fact I live in both worlds for a large part of my time.
I’m a digital subscriber to The Times but I love the touch and feel of my monthly glossy fashion magazines and just for good measure I also take two digital magazine subscriptions I know I can’t help myself.
The ongoing print vs digital debate has been done to death, a long debated subject about it’s place in the order of things. You would think people would stop perpetuating the myth that all things electronic are marvellous and that the utopian ideal is a paperless office, worse, a national paper free day.
What harm has paper or print ever done. It is the first medium that children come into contact with as babies and when learning to read because they can see the words and pictures.
89% of consumers get their ideas from a print ad, which starts them on a journey toward purchasing. Paper volumes have dropped and print is likely to be a secondary or tertiary medium but used in conjunction with cross media marketing it is extremely effective.
- What does it feel like to pick up a hard back book? (my preference over paper back) I love it, I love smelling old books there is a sense of history to it, I’m a bit anal about print.
- Print really gets to me in a different way than screen viewing. Paper doesn’t contain hyperlinks whereas interactive screens are full of distractions with online ads which often annoy and distract my viewing. You can google a search term and end up never going back to the original text. Screens are more taxing mentally, it’s hard work navigating around a screen than a piece of paper because you are having to navigate from one screen to another to find information.
- Books, magazines, catalogues, any paper medium gives you a sense of progression as you turn the page but with a screen once you have read it, it’s gone and it feels never ending.
- Finding typing or spelling errors on screen is far harder than if you print out the manuscript and then the errors appear as if by magic.
- Good design grabs your attention and communicates the idea, an advert can take advantage of a full page and is very effective, it has no distracting links, pop up ads or videos.
- Print is everywhere – newspapers, magazines, outdoor billboards it touches you on a deeper level often unconsciously. Digital is very different. People try to work out the differences between print and digital, which one is better or more effective, why bother? The reality is each one is very effective if employed in an intelligent and thought provoking way ultimately engaging with the reader.
- Fashion brands use visual imagery to promote and define their brand through fashion magazines. But they use digital channels to really engage with their target audience by telling their story, showing the personality and style of the brand and what their values are. But print is the first point of engagement that consumers have with a brand.
- Multi-channel campaigns start with print then move to the digital channels. Print is a great starting point when coming up with a new idea, concept or design. When that is done it’s easier to adapt it for multi-channel campaigns.
- When I think of an idea I drop it down in my evernote moleskin notebook because it’s easier and quicker than opening my iPad, by which time I’ve forgotten the thing I was suppose to remember to write down.
- I love my workflowy (quick notes) and smartsheet (project task management) but by the time I’ve opened the blasted applications I’ve forgotten why I was opening it in the first place so guess what I use my tasks in my filofax, yes that ever wonderful paper based filing and index system. Isn’t it fab when you strike through a to do when you’ve completed it you just don’t get the same feeling when you do it digitally. Works for me.
Research has shown that reading from a screen is 20-30% slower than reading from paper.
Ink on paper is an enduring technology. The only thing you need is the human eye to read it.
There you have it that is why I love print and why it has such an enduring quality for me.
Tell me what you think? Are you like me or are you a complete convert to digital versions only?
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Yes to all of the above, Caroline. As an author I still find far less satisfaction seeing an eBook of mine on Amazon or my own site, than I do when I can actually touch and feel its printed incarnation. And it’s not just old goats like me: my 22-yr-old son prefers print books to eBooks, too, and he claims that many of his contemporaries feel the same way. As for digital vs print for note-taking, I challenge anyone to see who’s faster on the draw – them with their IPad/tablet in a neat little case not yet switched on, or me with my (paper) notebook and pen…
Thanks Suzan for taking the time to respond and for showing the love. I love paper and I love digital so works well for me. But I love books I still buy more paper and hardback books then I do downloads. There’s something comforting about getting to the end of the book.
Hi Caroline. I have to say that although I consider myself converted to digital, there are times when I still prefer a newspaper, a magazine, or book. You make excellent points for print!
Yup, totally agree with the write-up. It’s also the reason why print will never die in that it’s different enough from digital. They both have positives and negatives and of course there is a crossover, that said when digital magazines in specific get more interactivity then things will certainly start to get interesting, for me at least. I don’t think anything is going to tear me away from a physical copy though!