UK Print Industry Moves To Capture The Young

Picon has announced an initiative that it hopes will result in the most concerted UK industry-wide effort to raise the profile of printing and encourage young people to make a career in the industry.

Picon has announced an initiative that it hopes will result in the most concerted UK industry-wide effort to raise the profile of printing and encourage young people to make a career in the industry.

The initiative - named Print It! - has been developed by Picon in association with the Specialist Schools Trust (SST) and the Fairtrade Foundation.

The SST, the lead body for the Government's specialist schools programme, works to build relationships between business and industry and its network of over 2,400 affiliated secondary schools.

The Fairtrade Foundation, which was voted the UK's Charity of the Year in 2004, campaigns to increase sales of Fairtrade-certified products, thus helping five million farmers and their families across 49 countries to achieve a better deal from trade.

Print It! will be built around a national competition for Year 10 students (aged 15) in their first year of GCSE study, although it is also expected to attract interest from students in Years 9 and 11.

Details of the competition are being finalised but students will have to create a comprehensive 'print-centric' campaign to promote Fairtrade.

As a result, Print It! will introduce students not only to printing technology but also to the attributes of print as a medium and the industry's role as an enabling technology for other industries such as publishing, advertising, marketing, direct mail and packaging, for instance believes Picon.

Following initial discussions with a number of industry sponsors and canvassing of its membership, Picon said it is confident that students will be competing for over £100,000 of prizes, including a single overall award and a number of commended awards for entries that show a good grasp of particular technologies or disciplines, such as direct mail or personalised printing.

It is intended that students will start work on their entries in October 2005, that judging will take place in March 2006 and results will be announced in time for an awards ceremony at the Ipex 2006 exhibition, which takes place at the UK's NEC in Birmingham the following month.

Fairtrade will have the option of using winning entries in its campaigns and Picon is also coordinating printing of material for the charity as part of members' Ipex demonstrations.

Martyn Elmy, the chairman of Picon, said that Print It! originated from a feasibility study Picon undertook last summer.

"Like many other organisations in printing, we have felt for some time that we must act to showcase the high-tech global industry that we have become.

We set out with two goals in mind - a general one of increasing public awareness of what is the country's fifth-largest industry and a specific one of introducing students to the industry before they make career decisions.

In the course of the study we made contact with the SST and Fairtrade, who have helped us refine the concept to appeal to schools.

We also approached potential supporters of the project to gauge the likely level of cross-industry support." He added: "I am pleased to say following positive responses to these approaches, the first phase is now complete - we have an idea, we are confident it will work and we are now making the industry aware of Print It! The next phase starts now and in the coming weeks we will be inviting the industry as a whole to join the initiative." He said that a working party has been formed under Picon's chairmanship and that a project manager will shortly be appointed.

The final touches are being put to a range of sponsorship and supporter packages and Print It! is on schedule for a full national launch in March.

BPIF, Wyndeham, Robert Horne, BAPC and IPEX are among key supporters of the scheme.

The BPIF, Wyndeham Press Group plc, Robert Horne Group, the BAPC and Ipex have already pledged to fulfil major roles in Print It!.

The BPIF and BAPC will launch appeals to their respective members with the aim of establishing 'twinning' arrangements between print providers and local schools so that teachers and students can supplement classroom teaching with on-site visits.

Wyndeham Press will print all Print It! material, including promotional and teaching materials, on paper provided free by Robert Horne Group, while Ipex will issue free tickets to students and teachers taking part in the competition, provide Print It! with a free stand and host the awards ceremony in April 2006.

Picon chief executive John Brazier said that the organisation had already canvassed its membership to assess their support for Print It! and he was delighted by the response.

"There is a general acknowledgement that we need more young people to enter the industry and that the time has come to get our act together," he added.

Janet Waters, head of technology at the Specialist Schools Trust, welcomed Print It! as what she called 'the beginning of what we hope will be an continuing relationship between our schools and the printing industry'.

"It is one of the country's major industries.

This is a really exciting initiative from Picon and its partners and it goes to the heart of our mission to foster links between innovative, high-performing secondary schools and the business community.

We look forward to working with the printing industry to bring Print It! to fruition," she added.

Harriet Lamb, director of The Fairtrade Foundation, commented: "Print It! is a really innovative way of promoting our goals.

The ideas, printed material and publicity that Print It! will generate are very welcome.

By encouraging students to create their own Fairtrade campaigns, the competition gives us a priceless opportunity to get them thinking about what we're trying to achieve.

Students and young people are crucial to our future success, because the buying habits they adopt now will stay with them for years." And the British Printing Industries Federation (BPIF) offered its congratulations.

BPIF chief executive officer Michael Johnson said: "It will be of significant strategic benefit to the printing sector as industries such as our own suffer from the twin challenges of an ageing population and a bias against vocational careers amongst today's students.

This initiative will give our industry a crucial 'first mover' advantage in what is going to become an increasingly competitive recruiting climate.

Not only will it help to bring a new group of young people into the industry, it will also increase the profile of Ipex 2006 within the public domain and through that, the image of our sector.

We are very excited about this campaign and look forward to working with Picon and the rest of the industry to make it happen." Toby Marchant, the chief executive of Robert Horne Group, said: "The Group is very proud to be so closely involved with Print It! Printing is a great industry, combining a long history with a remarkable ability to meet and accommodate constant technological change.

As such, it has an immense amount to offer young people looking for a challenging career." Wyndeham Press Group managing director Paul Utting also expressed commitment to supporting the initiative.

"Print It! is a really exciting initiative which Wyndeham is wholly committed to.

The printing industry needs to be able to recruit and retain the best people in the future or we will not be able to compete with other industries.

We are very much looking forward to working on the project and to provide students the opportunity to have their designs professionally printed, which will demonstrate the tremendous abilities of print as a medium." The British Association of Print and Communication (BAPC) chairman Sidney Bobb also added his voice to the general support for the project.

"We are only too willing to support Print It! The industry has been crying out for it and Picon deserves the plaudits for taking the lead.

As an industry we have the creativity and the technology to make Print It! a real success and it's clear from the response to date that we also have the enthusiasm.

At the BAPC our mission is to promote the power of print and Print It! is a real opportunity to demonstrate what this means." Ipex 2006 event director Trevor Crawford said that the exhibition would be a natural climax for the project.

"It is is set to play a big part in promoting all that is good about print.

Our involvement will tie in well with our student promotion campaign and as the second largest graphic arts exhibition in the world, we'll be showcasing all the vibrancy and dynamism of the industry in the Ipex halls.".

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