Asking the iPad generation to design the cover of a printed magazine – and for a printing title at that – was a bold idea last year, when the Power of Print cover competition was first run with second-year students on the University of Brighton’s graphic design course. The idea, though, was to try and engage the next generation of design leaders with a medium that some might have regarded as being obsolete.

A year on and young people are even more firmly entrenched in the digital world, with tablet devices and smartphones now ubiquitous. And so print is perhaps even more foreign to this year’s students.

Or so you’d think. In fact, the eloquent runners-up and winner of this year’s competition paint a picture of the media landscape far removed from that which many people often discuss. Notions like digital fatigue pop up, as do passionate arguments for print’s legitimate and lasting role in the media mix. This year, we have some exceptional designs, but we also have a snapshot of what the designers of the future – those who will dictate print’s role in 10 years and onwards – are thinking about the channels they have at their disposal.

And so The Power of Print cover competition is now more necessary and relevant than ever. What we found this year was a design generation hungry for information and desperate for some interaction from a print industry that seems to be ignoring them. The designs below show a real thirst and engagement with print, but sadly, this enthusiasm will be lost unless print does more to cultivate it. The engagement that The Power of Print encourages needs to be expanded by the industry.

To kickstart that, we have given the winner and shortlisted entries a voice to reveal the thinking behind their cover designs, along with their opinions on print. Print would do well not only to listen, but also be willing to start talking back.

• The Power of Print will be published together with the 14 December issue of PrintWeek.

THE WINNER

Charlotte Bassett

Jon Severs How did you approach the brief?
CB I first looked to the past, both in terms of the types of covers that had been chosen for The Power of Print before and in terms of the wider issues that the supplement explores. The brief talked about the mix between digital and print and I found it a really interesting subject – an issue  I found print had been struggling with for some time. I discovered articles from as far back as 1994 talking about it!

JS How did you create the cover design?
CB It was from a 1994 article in Printmaking Today magazine that I found the quote that I thought summed up the whole issue perfectly: "These contrasting technologies are bound together through a well balanced relationship between organic and electronic". I was very keen to incorporate this into my design in a way that demonstrated the blurring of boundaries between print and digital. I wanted to look to the future where the two mixed freely.

I started by looking at different type forms and how they could showcase the quote. I came across Swiss Modernism and the arrangement of letters and type in lines and this really inspired me. It made me think about monospace computer screens and how as soon as you see Monospace font you think of digital. I wanted to mix Swiss Modernism and Monospace to create my cover. I wanted to have the text flow as it would on a digital screen with binary, but have that text put in place using print, in this case using letterpress.

JS How difficult was that?
CB I designed it digitally first, before composing the type for the press. I then printed one line – there were not enough characters available to set the whole block as you see it on the cover – and then copied and shifted that print digitally after scanning it in. The first versions I printed actually looked too perfect. I wanted them to look more like they had been printed. And so I worked in the letterpress studio at making some of the characters more distressed.

JS What do you think the message of your cover is?
CB Well, the cover could not exist without the print and digital elements working harmoniously with each other. I hope that this is a wider message on the issue the supplement deals with, and I hope it encourages those who see it to combine digital and print in their own work.

JS Would you change anything given more
time?
CB I don’t think so – if I had pushed it any further I think it would have lost some of its impact.

JS Away from the cover competition, do you think the print industry does enough to engage with the next generation of designers?
CB Not really, no. We have an amazing technician here for when we want to do printing. She’s really inspiring. But as for people from the print industry coming down and explaining to us why we should be looking at print, we have had nothing. I think that it is really important that the print industry engages with the design courses to ensure its voice is heard.

JS Is print still relevant to your generation?
CB Definitely. We are so saturated with digital mediums that it is overwhelming. Print is very refreshing and I think people of my age are very receptive to print as a result.

JS What do you want to do in the future?
CB My preference would be to work in print. I’m not that interested in screen work or animations, but I’m extremely interested in books and designs for books.

Hannah Blows

JS How did you arrive at your final design?
HB I found packaging a really interesting area, in which print is so essential to the end-product, so I wanted to concentrate on that. At first, I wanted to represent a choice between digital and print for packaging, but that idea became quite convoluted. I then came to trying to use digital to perform the print function and, in doing so, highlighted how essential print is. I ended up projecting the label onto a tin and photographing the result. It was a long day with a projector and a camera.

JS If you had more time would you change it?
HB I would have kept the same idea but would have tried to have done it more successfully. That would have meant more time with the projector and the use of a professional photographer rather than me trying to do it all myself!

JS What is your opinion of print as a medium?
HB I think there is something lasting about print – with digital mediums things get lost too easily. It is also more personal and I think often more effective than other mediums.

JS What would you like to do in the future?
HB I would like to get into magazines or books on the design side. I like the idea of using good design to help educate people.

Con Chrisoulis

JS How did you arrive at your final design?
CC The first thing I thought when I was listening to the brief was a scenario of a dilemma over whether to swear on the printed Bible or the iPad version. We are at a point where people are telling us that print is dying out and we are bombarded with questions over whether we still want print. I thought the courtroom scene really summed up that moment in time. My initial concept was to set it up as a photo shoot, but because of the limits of time and budget I decided to illustrate it. That said, I think illustration can be really powerful at getting the message across, so I was happy to do that.

JS If you had more time would you change it?
CC I would work on the colours. The colours worked really well on the screen, but when I came to print it, they did not match. The finished, printed design didn’t come out with all the half tones that I was hoping for.

JS Does the print industry engage with design students enough?
CC Not at all. I think that it would be really handy for the print industry to come in and even offer something as simple as tips about designing for print or the different types of paper we can design for and use. We need to be instructed on how to get our designs off the computer and into print. We have had quite a few people come in from other mediums, but from the print industry we have had nothing.

JS What would you like to do in the future?
CC I want to teach design in secondary schools, but I am also managing to make a living from designing comics at the moment. I am doing that online at present, but I am going to move into print soon as there is a real demand for it. (You can see Con’s comic work for yourself by heading to www.
conchrisoulis.com).

Steffan Dafydd

JS How did you arrive at your final design?
SD I wanted to emphasise that print is fun and you can feel it and you get a connection with it that you do not get with other mediums. I thought that by creating something physical I could emphasise why it is unique and why, in some cases, it is better than other mediums. When it came to construction, I knew I wanted to create the message, ‘Can you feel it?’, so I searched out the physical tools with which to create the letters. I printed some bits off and created others out of things around me, such as the books. The project came together really well.

JS If you had more time would you change it?
SD I think given more time I would work more with colour, as I am not that happy with the current look of the design. I may have experimented further with the objects I was using too.

JS What role do you think designers have in a marketing campaign?
SD I think the designer should know what is going on and what is possible at each stage of the process.

JS Do you currently get the interaction with the print industry to facilitate that?
SD We don’t, and the print industry really needs to build better relationships with us. We currently have no real idea what is possible and how we should be designing for print. In the future, that could be to the detriment of the print industry as much as to us and print as a whole. It would be great if people from the print industry came in and talked to us.

JS What would you like to do in the future?
SD I am really interested in poster advertising and I like the idea of getting into designing for political messaging. I think posters still have a crucial role in informing the general public and I can’t see it ever being beaten.

Jess Hayes-Watkins

JS How did you arrive at your final design?
JHW I was trying to think of examples of how print is an essential part of our lives – and I came to the conclusion that with packaging, there is no way to get the messages across other than through print. Having made the decision to focus on that, I wanted to imagine a world without the print. So I collected everyday items and spray painted them white, photographed them and laid them out on the cover in a grid design. The positioning of the packaging was a long process. I was moving around the items to ensure the spacing was right and the lines and look were as effective as they could be.

JS If you had more time would you change it?
JHW I was thinking of showing one of the objects with print, to show it standing out on its own against the white. But I am not sure how effective that would be. I like them all being white, but it is something I may have tried out.

JS Do you think your generation has a connection with print?
JHW Well, with iPads you have something close to the print experience and so that is perhaps changing the connection more than ever before. But I think print still plays a role – I think we would have more of a connection if we had more interaction with the print industry. We have daily interactions with the digital mediums as that is how we work, but print is a little foreign to us and I think we would really benefit from the print industry speaking up for itself and informing us why we should be using it.

JS What would you like to do in the future?
JHW I would like to work in magazines – I like the design of layouts and covers. I enjoy the process.

Melita Pupsaite

JS How did you arrive at your final design?
MP I have always been interested in looking at the smallest details and drawing them to bring attention to the importance they have. I wanted to take this and work with it for the cover and so I decided to construct a circuit board using CMYK colours and integrating print marks. The idea was to show how print and digital are embedded in each other down to the smallest detail. I played with a few different backgrounds but black was the most effective. And I drew it all by hand on the computer – it took around four hours in total.

JS If you had more time would you change it?
MP I think I would add more detail. I think there is room for it to be more sophisticated, to perhaps use the print symbols in a better way.

JS What is your opinion of print as a medium?
MP I think that when you have strong design that works for the printed medium, then print can still be an incredibly effective tool. I prefer printing and the feel of paper; it is a much more personal
experience.

JS What would you like to do in the future?
MP I am not sure, exactly – but I definitely want it to be print-based. Perhaps publications or illustration. I think new technologies will always emerge and be exciting, but I think print will always have a place alongside them. 

THE DESIGNS