I’m not one of those people who defend print at all costs, nor do I hop onto a soapbox to try and convince marketers and consumers to choose printed formats over digital.

Sure, I share my own opinions why print-over-digital is my personal preference in certain situations. But it’s truly fascinating to come upon others’ opinions about print, new research about print, or some random mention of printed products, especially when least expected.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been delighted to come upon the following:

“…to caress mere ink and paper nowadays is to slow ourselves down and, in the process, enhance our mental well-being. To wade into these antediluvian full-color seas is one way to create a pulse-easing caesura of a Sunday morning.”

That was written by Dana Jennings, a journalist and author, who wrote a marvelous full-page piece in the New York Times on January 10^th, entitled, “Old Breakfast Buddies, From Tarzan to Snoopy.” If that first sentence of his doesn’t cause chills to anyone in the print industry, you don’t belong here. Pure beauty, I tell you.

More recently, I heard a news item on my car radio. Just hearing the word “print” being spoken gets my attention. It’s as if someone says my name. The report was about a study by Pew Research. While a big part of the write-up has to do with e-books and how their popularity is rising, what jumped out at me was this lovely bit:

“…print remains the foundation of Americans’ reading habits.”

Also interesting to me: “Most people who read e-books also read print books, and just 4% of readers are “e-book only.”

Finally, in the January 15^th Home section of the New York Times (ours is a print-with-digital subscription), in a lovely piece called, “Cultivating Hudson: Enter the Tastemakers,” author Robert Wright wrote about Ann Marie Gardner, who used the term “rurbanism” to describe the “urban-rural confluence” of the evidently very hip area. This paragraph jumped out at me:

“Rurbanism is also the paradigm for her year-old magazine, the culturally pitch-perfect and archly designed Modern Farmer, with its articles of architected sheepshearing shacks in Tasmania, its goat cams and its young editorial staff, many of whom moved here from San Francisco.”

Not a magazine I’d read regularly, but how interesting is that? It’s probably beautiful.

Here’s to coming upon stories and news about print. Print…Long may it fascinate.

(c) 2014 Margie Dana. All rights reserved.