In The Blood

When you are brought up on print publishing it’s impossible to get it out of your blood. Online publishing is another dimension, and while you may embrace it, if you’re like me you still get a kick out of being able to feel the results in your hands.

After more years than I care to remember then, of seeing publications by the day, by the week, or the month and even annually which I have in some measure had responsibility for you would think the expectations would have moderated; no longer would I be hankering after seeing the final product.

Don’t you believe it. I still get as much kick out of being able to see complete publications which I have had hand in, in the flesh so to speak. It’s an experience you cannot emulate online. Don’t get me wrong, you can still take pride in a website, in online newsletters and especially the ability to update in real time, so that with a news orientated website at least, you can be as current and as up to date as it is possible to be.

But that’s it, it’s on your computer, and yes, your message can be read in any part of the world instantaneously. Magic!

At heart though, I have to admit to being of the old school, with a lifetime spent in newspapers and magazines, I am a print person through and through. I love newspapers and magazines. They always used to say that the smell of printers’ ink gets into your blood.

So when an email flashed onto my computer and phone screen today, saying that copies of one of the latest publications which I have had the privilege to edit, had been delivered from printers, I couldn’t wait to drive the ten miles to be able to see and feel it in my hands. Yet everyday throughout the editorial, design and layout stages of its production I have been living and breathing its pages and their content. Final design did not leave the computers for the press until I was as satisfied as I could be.

Today that satisfaction came to fruition. For this publication, at least. There is another on the computer awaiting final send off. And I know I won’t be able to wait to have that one in my hands as well. And the next . .