Beatrice Bless from Camberwell School of Art was one of a group of students  who came on a study visit to Calverts two weeks ago with their tutor, Phil Seddon, who is running a module on Typography and Print Production - part of the FdA Design Practice course (in his other life, Phil is a senior designer at Mystery).

Beatrice's course submission was an industry report entitled 'Is Print Design Dead?', for which she interviewed four design and print practitioners, asking them a range of questions around sustainability issues in design and the future of our industry.

Notably, she asked Sean Murphy (Value & Service, print and editorial designers) "do you think print design will die?" - to which Sean replied "print will never die. When I was at college, it was always this kind of discussion - whether digital technology will spell the end of print. Now, 15 years later, nothing has changed ..." He could also have added that well-designed print can communicate more effectively than other media, because it engages both the intellect and the senses; a printed piece has texture, three dimensions, interactivity and odour as well as colour (which it can reproduce at far higher resolution than electronic media). You may laugh, but our soya- and linseed-oil based Bio inks have a distinct smell (which admittedly fades after a few weeks). We even have a few customers who check the authenticity of our work by sniffing it, before they look at what we've actually printed (however, we do have low odour inks, for applications such as food packaging.)

Beatrice selected the papers for her book; the inner pages were printed on Cyclus Offset 115gsm (100% white recycled, uncoated) and the covers, with a set of image cards, on Colourset 270gsm Sand - a tinted board, also 100% post-consumer recycled and uncoated.