To Print or Not to Print?

Printing is dead, right? Oh, it's definitely down, but it's certainly not out. It just needs to be thought about in a certain way. Printing is a medium. As such, printing is just another communication technology. And how do we select communication technologies? We use the one that is most appropriate to the task. Ok, so when do we need to use print? Simply put, when something needs to have tactile presence, needs to be permanent, or won't change within a year. So, a high-impact piece---print it. A reference card---print it. A corporate folder---print it. A sales sheet---don't print it. Don't print a sales sheet if you know it's going to change soon. Instead, consider PDFs. If it has to be on paper, consider print-on-demand or printing on preprinted shells.