Printing Industry Future

[bquarks]

Hello guys,
I'm working in printing industry for the last 12 years, since 2009 I moved to IT with focus in Prepress. Once a year, I review my career and decide what courses or technology I would like to learn in the next year, so this last review I realized that I'm more IT than Prepress, that not mean that I'm a good developer (compared with others developers) because my focus is automate the prepress tasks.
My experience are prepress tasks, development of solutions for prepress, MIS integration, XML, JDF, JMF, Esko Automation Engine, Enfocus Swith, Equinox... Magazines, Labels, Corrugated and now (Large Format that is more dynamic)... Offset, Gravure, Flexo, Digital...
Today I work in a company that have new machines, that put me in touch of new solutions, but in Brazil that is the unique company that have money and vision to buy and developer this solutions.

So my options are stay in Printing Industry but learn more coding languages or stay in Printing Industry but learn color management or accept a job in another country has prepress operator with good salary.

Can somebody give me a point of view of another country?
What do you expect about the next 5, 10 years of Printing Industry?

Thank you!

 

[Puch]

The future of printing is not that dark as one might perceive today. There is a lot of thing which will be need to be printed and can't be replaced with digital things, and you're in the best place to learn and use the new tools and equipment. Pure number crunching (I mean basic coding, basic layout operator jobs etc.) will be automatized soon. There might be some money to earn there, but eventually all these task will be phased out in favour of intelligent algorithms. You can only survive if: a.) you're the developer of those algorithms, b.) you stay where you are, I mean: where "the code hits the physical world".

On the other hand, I suggest you to listen to your deepest wishes and emotions toward your activity. A lot of people from my country went abroad (many with university degrees) to earn more money (and they do: they make 4x, 5x the money they could make here), but they perform some basic or downright ugly tasks. Eventually many of them come home telling how happy they were in the promised land, just, just... If you don't have strong friendships, family ties and loyalty to your homeland, you might get around well in a foreign environment.

 

[dianawelch]

Printing Industry will have a hard time in the future because of the new portable printing which everyone will have....

 

[9162]

for as long as we need to communicate there is print and im one that believes print has a future

 

[MacTwidget]

Packaging will be the mainstay of print. Brochures, catalogs, books, etc. will go digital, but everything that we purchase needs to come in a package.

 

[OffsetStorefront]

I think your current work of "automating prepress tasks" is a good genre of work to be in. You seem like you want to stay in the industry. In the US, I think being the guy working "where the code hits the physical world", as Puch put it, is the place to be. Here, new software is the hot thing and automation is every salesperson's favorite word. It takes people who know both how to work with software and how printing works to help pull actual value from the million different software packages being peddled. Seeing a whole lot of software developed and implemented by people who clearly don't have both areas of expertise.

So, long story short - I think what you're doing is more "future-proof" than most other printing industry jobs that come to mind. I'd suggest you just keep expanding your skill set.

 

[bquarks]

Packaging will be the mainstay of print. Brochures, catalogs, books, etc. will go digital, but everything that we purchase needs to come in a package.

MacTwidget, many years ago I thought the same, in the begin of this year I was invited to join to a company that makes cards, brochures and catalogs represents 85% of production, my first impression was "they don't make money". Today I work at this company, Vistaprint bought the 49% and we have a good investment in technology. For sure the packing industry is a different challenge but the company seems to look to this market in the future.

many thank you OffsetStorefront and Puch

You gave me a different approach of my situation.

 

[maas]

Augmented Reality, the conduit between print and digital....this has been my focus for the last few years and is gaining traction