For many print buyers and marketers, dealing with printing and printers is just a job responsibility. For others, however, it\u2019s more\u2014a connection with a craft that\u2019s very old yet still cutting-edge and an integral part of our society.
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As the coronavirus has upended the global economy including printing, it\u2019s worth remembering that printing has endured for centuries and will still be around when this is over.
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Historically, printing has always been about innovation and thriving amid economic and social turmoil.
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Printing technology stretches back to the 1300s, with the development of rag paper and block printing in China. It\u2019s undergone one revolution after another since then: from Gutenberg\u2019s combination of the printing press and oil-based ink in the 15th<\/sup> century to the technologies of the rotary press, hot metal typesetting, offset printing, the linotype machine, laser printing, and 3D printing. By some accounts<\/a>, an epidemic\u2014the first round of the bubonic plague in the 1340s\u2014gave printing its earliest boost. In medieval Europe, the plague had a leveling effect on a society skewed toward the rich. As the epidemic killed off some 60% of the population, the middle and lower classes inherited property and became wealthier\u2014more people could afford books, which encouraged more printing. In addition, the plague weakened the Church and led to the reorganization of the economy and society. The invention of the printing press and Protestant Reformation eventually followed, in which copies of Martin Luther\u2019s 95 Theses as well as his translation of the New Testament into German boosted demand for printing by becoming the first best-sellers. We don\u2019t know how today\u2019s coronavirus pandemic will change the economy in the long run, but it\u2019s increased demand for one printing technology: 3D printing.
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