b.cognosco

Custom Publishing a Bright Spot in Future of Print

terrywfrazier@gmail.com — Thu, 21 Aug 2003 20:29:47 GMT

One area of mass printing that show little sign of deterioration is the area of speciality magazines. While the enormous print runs of generalist titles such as Life and The Saturday Evening Post tumbled to extinction, their place has been taken by hundreds of smaller niche titles cranked out by smaller and smaller presses.

Now this article in the Economist reports that custom, or contract, publishing -- publishing a magazine on contract to a major advertiser like Ford or Armani rather than for subscription sales -- is growing 8% in Britain and 15% in the US.

Voguish
<small>Aug 21st 2003
From The Economist print edition</small>

At least one part of the publishing industry is booming

DESIGNING customer magazines for supermarkets, airlines, retailers and the like has always been looked down on in the publishing world. Often, the magazines are little more than product catalogues embellished with puff articles. But custom, or contract, publishing is shedding its lowly reputation, mainly because there is so much demand for it. The newest examples of the trend are expected to be three of the world's poshest brandsArmani, a clothes designer, Bulgari, a jeweller, and Moët Hennessy, a drinks firmwhich all have plans to launch their own magazines. Sue Douglas, head of contract publishing at Condé Nast in London, says she is talking to many other luxury brands about new magazines. [...] [Economist.com]

The implications here are for high-end design firms and high-quality presses -- perhaps even some of the recent HiFi Color and stochastic technology developments. But expect considerable price pressure as the major suppliers of these publications will be the large producers of existing newsstand fodder, who are now selling their excess capacity on the open market.

Competing in this segment will mean building an information supply chain that can cost effectively offer the advertiser the quality, content, and production values they need to drive sales. At the end of the day, the sale is all that matters.

On Negotiating Better

terrywfrazier@gmail.com — Sun, 02 Feb 2003 17:13:26 GMT

An analysis of two negotiating strategies -- "Getting to Yes", and "Start with No" -- which take opposite approaches and actually have two very different goals. James Vornov takes a personal look at the two paths to reaching agreement, and points out that "Win-Win" just may not be. James places the analysis in a context that will feel familiar to most business executives.

[...] The best agreement is the one that maximizes utility or value for all parties involved. It will involve give and take and tradeoffs to solve the common problem, but there will be some optimal solution.

Thus, the principle of "Getting to Yes" or "Think Win-Win" yields optimal solutions.

Or does it?

It was Jimmy Carter who made me uneasy with "Getting to Yes". It was clear to me that he had been trained by this school. Sometimes I felt the approach would yield agreements that should never be made. After all, if one side is, in truth, right and one is, in truth, wrong, then a win-win agreement is wrong. [...] [On Deciding...Better]

Graphic Arts Trends

terrywfrazier@gmail.com — Sat, 25 Jan 2003 02:26:59 GMT

TrendWatch Graphic Arts has released a new study profiling major trends and business statistics in the graphic arts. Among the key findings:

Digital color print is up. Traditional offset print is down -- 38% of design and production firms say their digital color printing jobs are increasing. The same number (38%) say that their traditional offset printing jobs are decreasing
Number of printing establishments is down -- The number of small commercial and quick printing establishments hit a high point in 1990 at 37,352 U.S. establishments. That number has been declining ever since
Cross-media is up -- 42 percent of graphic design firms surveyed reported cross-media as being strategic keys to the success of their business.

The report is available for $1,595 from TrendWatch.

Scalable Vector Graphics Roadmap

terrywfrazier@gmail.com — Thu, 23 Jan 2003 19:01:14 GMT

As an XML language for describing graphics, SVG is a potentially important standard in the future of print -- it is already supported in some Adobe applications. According to the SVG Roadmap the first draft of print specifications is scheduled for March 2003.

Draft Roadmap for SVG announced. The SVG Working Group has released the first public version of the SVG Roadmap. It's a draft which is missing details on some of the expected new work, but should give an indication of the general direction. Also, the Working Group has made a public version of their charter available for informative and historical purposes. [Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)]