Francis Atterbury, partner, Hurtwood Press
I don’t think engaging with designers will bring in masses of work and generate increased revenue in the market as a whole, but I don’t have any doubt that it would help individual printers to significantly improve their margins and their ability to survive. Certainly, if you look at some of the really fantastic work that has marked out fantastic printing companies, it’s all about their working with designers and artists. I can’t see the global market for printing in this country or Europe growing substantially, but that makes it all the more important for the individuals within their sector to understand and specialise, and design is absolutely crucial to that.
Nigel Anderson, managing director, Alchemy
From a finishing point of view, I would rather not meddle with the printers’ relationship with the designer, but I don’t think any of my customers have problems with their designers. I am sure relationships could be improved, but all relationships could. If you talk to a designer, sometimes they go off and say to the printer ‘they said this’, then you can have issues if something goes wrong. I would rather just deal with the printer and then any problem is their’s not mine. Sometimes, when designing a print job, too many cooks spoil the broth.