A Quark publication in co-operation with Cleverprinting

Hardly any other industry has undergone such rapid change over the past few years as the printing and media industry. DTP programmes like QuarkXPress have revolutionised what is possible in media production. Now the Internet, new programmes and new ways of working are introducing the next important step in media production: The advance of “dynamic publishing” cannot be stopped. It will fundamentally change the work done by agencies and designers.

With dynamic publishing, agencies and creative individuals will no longer – as previously – control the entire production process. Instead, they will become template creators, publishing project managers and platform architects. The publishing revolution is in full swing – and those who do not keep up risk losing step with the technology at some point.

Georg Obermayr is Technical Director at the ADVERMA agency and a user of Quark Publishing System 8. He highlights the opportunities, processes and requirements relating to dynamic publishing in this five-part series for the Cleverprinting Newsletter.

As well as this article, the Cleverprinting Newsletter contains much more information about DTP. With 14,000 subscribers, it is one of the most-read newsletters in the industry: www.cleverprinting.de/newsletter (In German).

In co-operation with Cleverprinting, QUARK is now publishing all parts of this successful series on its website, “The Dynamic Publisher” – an exclusive that has been translated into three languages.

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Web-to-Print
Part 3: Publishing systems
Part 4: Integrated publishing systems

Part 1

Introduction

Sometimes, a catchphrase is needed to cast light on insidious developments. The term “dynamic publishing”, for example, gives parallel developments like web-to-print and database publishing a standard conceptual structure. The term appears to be here to stay. This is urgently needed, because “dynamic publishing” is changing the very heart of the entire graphics industry.

To put it succinctly, dynamic publishing is the automatic creation of layouts. The content is also inserted into previously-created templates (layout templates) following sophisticated rules. This largely automates layout creation, saving time and reducing costs. On the other hand, this process should not be to the detriment of quality: Dynamic publishing systems are not intended to spit out monotonous industrial catalogues, but rather to create products with ambitious graphics and typography without compromise.

The key question is: “How will companies produce their marketing documents in ten years time?"

• How will they publish in print and on the web simultaneously?
• How will they keep labour-intensive designs up to date simply by pushing a button?
• How will they plan, design and create cross-media campaigns consisting of advertisements, online banners and videos centrally?
• How will they integrate and control publishing using the enormous variety of off-the-shelf business software (from ERP and CRM through BPM to PIM)?

Several of the above are already a reality and employed on a daily basis, while others will follow in the coming years. Ultimately, the topic probably still cannot be fully explored at this point in time.  Over the next few years, for example, Apple’s iPad and augmented reality could free up creativity in terms of how (journalistic) content is prepared and consumed. 

What is clear is that the focus of the stakeholders will shift: Advertising agencies will become suppliers of

• Frameworks for marketing strategies, corporate design guidelines and layout templates 
• Tools such as web-to-print systems, publishing solutions and content management environments.

Media production will increasingly occur within the companies themselves. Not necessarily only in the marketing department, but at each workstation, via the internet.

For agencies and media companies, this means both opportunity and risk. Companies which previously viewed themselves as “content and layout shops” for advertisements, invitations, business cards, etc. will face even more challenges in a dynamic publishing future. The industry needs to reflect on how it perceives itself. Again, in future there will be plenty of space for high quality products manufactured in small quantities, such as art books, calendars, image brochures and even branding concepts. Concentrating on these objects, which are not easily exchangeable, is the primary strategy for the industry. The second pillar will be IT. The producers of the next generation of publishing tools will exert considerable influence on what is possible in design and on creative licence.  With its centuries-long tradition in typesetting and graphic design, the media industry should not allow this influence to slip from its grasp. It would be naïve to believe that the graphics industry could develop these tools itself - they are much too complex. Instead, agencies and printing houses must drive development and should not let themselves be crushed between clients on one hand and IT companies on the other. In the ideal situation, media companies will become a kind of think-tank tasked with exploring how their clients can implement publishing IT.

This development also has implications for job descriptions. Many specialists working on layouts and pre-publication tasks are crossing borders and attempting to bring together topics such as pre-press technology, type setting, template creation, project consultancy and IT. The design process has also been changed by designers "thinking in templates". New job descriptions such as template builder, publishing project manager and platform architect are already appearing. Individuals who are at once generalists and specialists in as many sub-disciplines as possible will likely be most successful in this new and different professional world. At the same time, the graphics industry must ensure that it doesn't bleed out and lose its best people. There will be increased demand within client companies for people to support complex publishing systems. Education is soon to be affected and will have to reflect those changes: “conventional” media jobs (from media designer and graphic designer through to consultant) are insufficient to accommodate these shifts in tasks and skills– convincing new curricula and education structures have yet to be developed to meet these new needs. 

The individual components required for dynamic publishing have existed for a long time. Yet it is only now that the various key technologies are interacting with each other:

• In dynamic publishing, the content is most dramatically separated from its use in specific media. Databases house the content as text and images. Ideally, they are so closely knit that the company can use them outside the publishing world. XML is the interface between different systems and file formats. For example, print layouts can be changed automatically into websites by applying XML transformations. Of course, this requires that the systems used are equally open in relation to XML.The omnipresence of the Internet and dramatically expanded bandwidths are important factors for dynamic publishing. Ultimately, many of the systems are based on websites. This is reflected in our ability today to represent interfaces that resemble a desktop on the web.
• Cloud computing also plays a role, especially in web-to-print systems. In precisely the same way as you already save your emails and contacts in a “cloud”, you will be able in future to access your print templates from anywhere.
• The two juggernauts among layout programs, Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress generally predominate in most high-quality dynamic publishing systems, but are transparent from the outside. Finally, the server versions of these tools are employed in these programs, and because they have no graphic interface, they are streamlined enough to process a large quantity of documents performantly and reliably. This process makes use of the same sophisticated typographical and design functions that are familiar from the desktop versions. This is why a layout program engine is usually superior to a PDF engine in terms of flexibility, capacity for integration and production quality, especially for more complex publishing applications.
• PDF/X and colour management form the basis of the modern pre-press stage. Dynamic publishing would not be possible without the standardisation and quality assurance that have been achieved in terms of print data creation and transfer.

The next instalments of this series explore how these technologies interact to shape a new generation of publishing solutions. One thing is clear, however: There is enormous potential for clients to save time and money and improve quality. The publishing revolution is gaining momentum and it won't slow down any time soon.

Georg Obermayr