The Move to Digital Pt. 2

I’d like to continue talking about the move to digital media and the reactions I’ve witnessed in others.

Most prevalent in my mind is a woman at work who has clearly been working with silk screening for a long time. She really knows her craft, but feels threatened by the new technology and makes things more difficult based on her knowledge of being phased out.

Now, I should explain that part of my job is to make sure that the digital files sent to us can be printed as required. Sometimes these images are still being silk screened, so we need to set up these images by separating all the colours being used and also adding registers to certain sides of the images for the people who are physically doing the screen printing.

This makes total sense to me, that the people actually printing the image layer by layer would need a quick and easy to see marker to ensure they are setting the image up correctly, but there are many variables I’m not aware of. This woman is so unused to dealing with digital media – though she can prepare artwork on her own quite effectively – that she is unable to explain to others the reasons for her requests. This becomes very frustrating. I have no problem setting files up in a way that is more efficient and makes everyone else’s life easier – but simply telling what I’ve provided is wrong is not helpful. As silk screening is not my trade I need these things pointed out to me.I'd be glad to know that based on the way the screens get set up on the table putting the registers in a certain location sets them at an appropriate line of sight for the people in production.

All I’m getting at is that the looming shadow of digital is real yes. But I’m not trying to make anyone else’s life harder. Certainly not, in fact the technology should be making things more streamlined. But people need to understand that they can work with the technology, and if they articulate their needs clearly, then the technology can be easily manipulated to serve them, rather than push them away.