Experiential marketing. It was big in 2011 and it's set to get even bigger in 2012 as brands eschew more traditional advertising forms in an attempt to get a greater bang for their buck.

Caspar Williamson, a London-based illustrator and screen-printer who runs the print and design firm Flying Machines, published the book Reinventing Screenprinting last month, which celebrates the work of some of the world's most innovative and creative screenprinters. We caught up with him to find out his thoughts on the printing techniques recent revival and what the future has in store for screenprint lovers.

It's been a tumultuous week for the printing industry. On Friday Manroland, the world's third largest press manufacturer, filed for insolvency. The reason behind its financial decline: a lack of orders for new equipment. An official statement issued by the German company on Friday underlined the full extent of the problem. In it Manroland explained that it had experienced a "dramatic downturn" in orders since July, a trend that had accelerated in recent months.

Traditionally print was an industry divided into specialist areas. If you wanted a newspaper printed you went to a newspaper printer, if you wanted a billboard poster printed you went to a wide-format printer and if you wanted something laminated you went to a laminator.

Launching an innovation into a market that has had the same choices for many years is bound to cause a stir. In fact, the better the idea, the greater the reaction it will cause.

A few years ago clients didn't care about the colour of their wide-format print jobs, colour management did not exist. All they wanted was something big and bold. Colour was a secondary consideration if indeed it came into the equation at all. It was something that the printer dealt with entirely on their own and the client was forced to accept the results because they didn't have the tools to manage the process themselves nor in many instances did they have the print knowledge to realise when the wool was being pulled over their eyes.

You wouldn't think so by absent-mindedly flicking through the pages of a magazine or newspaper, or if you scrutinised advertisements on street poster sites or on public transport. However, some experts believe that the codes, which have been warmly embraced by smartphone users over the last couple of years, could have overstayed their welcome thanks to the rapid growth of image recognition technology (see previous blog on Google Goggles).

Five or so years ago I had the good fortune to visit a commercial printer in China. The factory was run down and the equipment was old and decrepit. As a result, the work that was being produced was of a poor standard and you didn't need to use a linen tester to establish this. To put it bluntly, it wasn't what I expected of a global superpower.

Until relatively recently social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn were seen as great networking tools but few had worked out how to make money from them (including the site owners themselves). However, that changed recently with the launch of Facebook deals (and LinkedIn's impressive flotation on the US stock exchange).

 

Social media channels are great for tracking down former school mates that you've lost touch with and they're great at helping you to keep up-to-date with what your friends have been up to but what about as a marketing tool for a business?

Is it really worth the time and effort involved in setting up – and then updating on a regular basis – a dedicated presence on sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn?