Fresh Perspectives: The Most Asked Question

I entered the print and signage industries two years ago, and something I have been asked more than anything else is: "How did you end up in the industry?"

Did I choose this career path on purpose? How did I find my job? And what was it that attracted me to the industry?

Like many others I ended up entering the industries through complete chance. I had just finished my bachelor’s degree in Fine Art, and with the looming feeling of needing to find a trade I jumped into the world of apprenticeships. Completely unknowing of where it would take me, I applied for a plethora of apprenticeships, looking at trades that weren’t just print.

It wasn’t until I heard back from my interview for the role of apprentice print technician at GH Display that my journey into the world of print began.

I can’t help but notice that unlike so many other trades, print isn’t advertised to people in education. Throughout my own education I was never told about the print and signage industries at all. I knew of course that things were ‘printed’ to put it loosely, but never to the extent of how much is actually produced and how it was done, or why. Going through secondary education, GCSE’S, A Levels, and then into an arts university I would now wish it was a career path that was introduced to us and discussed as a viable career choice to take. At no point was it ever expressed to me the extent of what the print industry is, and this seems like such a massive fault.

It has highlighted that people are becoming increasingly concerned with the idea that print isn’t attracting the amount of people that it might have at one time, and that there isn’t the same level and demand for young talent entering the industry as there might have been before.

As an apprentice it is easy for me to imagine that there must be hundreds or even thousands of us around the UK doing the same thing. It seems like the most obvious entry point into the industries is being given role specific training and guidance from people with real expertise and experience within print and signage.

But after reading articles from the past few years and engaging with people within the industry to ask what their take is, what I might have imagined, actually isn’t the case at all; it’s quite the opposite. From my experience through education, it exemplifies that the starting conversations with young people, when It really matters, aren’t being had.

Perhaps it boils down to the fact that people are being deterred from hiring apprentices at the moment due to rising business costs and minimum wage pay rises. With these things comes job advertisements being taken down, jobs being lost, and an industry of printers on wages that perhaps stopped increasing at the same rate that they once did. On top of this, businesses don’t seem to have the time or funding it takes to dedicate the time and energy into training the next generation of printers and sign-makers.

This lack of funding is where it truly matters, getting people interested and engaged with print and signage as a career, is unquestionably frustrating to see, especially at such an early point in my own journey. I have enjoyed my time so far not only within the industry, learning what it has to offer, and how much can come out of it, but also through my apprenticeship.

It has afforded me opportunities and career progression at a pace that I could never have dreamed of, nor did I know was possible. I was able to attend drupa within my first year of my apprenticeship as well as become part of FESPA UK’s Next Generation Committee, join the Printing Charity’s Rising Star constellation, and so much more. These opportunities have given me not just experiences and training in areas that might not have been open to me without them, but also they have allowed me to have conversations which have expanded my knowledge.

This has only made me more eager to continue on this path and see where it will take me.
This is something that I want as many people to experience as they can. The print and signage industries aren’t what they may once have been seen to be. Historically, working in print was seen as a dirty trade, stereotyped with being physically demanding, and a male profession involving physical labour and intensity, but this isn’t the case.

Advertising the industries to young people, engaging both men and women into the conversation, needs to be funded more. Educating people on the opportunities and career paths that are open to them and letting them see how many different paths are available within the industry is hugely important. When parents or teachers talk about careers, print needs to be placed alongside others to show younger people it’s an option too.

Without this advertisement of what the industries are, how can we expect to see the change that print, and signage deserves?