Print Designers Protest!

In the past, reading the newspaper was one of the prime modes of gaining knowledge about the world around us. This particular medium combines both text and imagery to create an overall product, a process which is similar to the rendering of digital media. The text stated, “When you are writing for the screen, it is now much easier to make use of visual resources like images, layout, font and formatting.” As Layout Editor for the campus newspaper, The Leader, I can easily attest to the design simplification that the digital age presents for users. Templates are a wonderful thing.  

However, for those who are proficient in the Adobe Creative Suites program, the digital age only makes it difficult for print designers to find employment. Web-designers have taken the place of traditional designers, not only web-designers, but the average internet user as well. A print designer is forced adapt to the means to a new technologically versed world. Consumers are no longer looking for a well formatted book or pamphlet, they are looking for a blog design that will “wow” their fellow bloggers. Sure, a print-designer can understand the aesthetic process of creating a blog that is well-composed, but do they know anything at all about HTML? My guess, probably not. The traditional designer must adapt otherwise they will be quickly left in the dust by web-designers coding until their heart’s desire. 

As stated in the text, “As we move from the page to the screen, we are witnessing a change in the amount and quality of information that is communicated through messages.” When formatting a newspaper, a traditional designer had to rely on word-count and other tricks of the trade in order to make the text fit perfectly onto the page. A web-designer has so much more flexibility. Writers for the digital age are allowed to write however much they please, for all the web-designer has to do is add another web-page if it doesn’t quite fit onto one. However, since our minds are a little scattered-brained when viewing the web, writers try to simplify their words, making the life of a web-designer a little more simple.

 Though, this isn’t to say that web-designers have it easy all the time; it’s just that their work-load is different from the traditional process of creation. Coding is an art form in itself. It is a form of design that most print-designers are just learning now, in order to keep up with their ever-advancing profession. Although the digital world has changed our means of consuming media, the way in which that media is created has also been impacted in a way that is progressing every day.