Digitized.

• Author: Beck, Bill
• Position: Indiana's graphics industry - Industry Overview

The computer revolution in the graphics industry continues.

Few industries in Indiana have undergone more change in the 1990s than the printing industry. Printing at the beginning of the decade was a relatively straight-forward affair. Typesetting houses set' type, photographers took pictures, color separators produced color images, graphics artists laid out copy on light tables, strippers assembled negatives from which printing plates would be made, and the printers ran the job on offset presses. As many as three or four different companies were often involved in the production of one job.

Today, the photography and typesetting is often combined digitally by the client, the job is laid out on computer, and once copy is approved, it goes to the printer on disk. Once the brochure or catalog or newsletter is physically printed, the final product also can be downloaded to the client's Web site or electronically archived on disk or CD-ROM. And more and more frequently, all of the steps in the printing process happen in one place.

"The control issue is so important to the client," says Steve Kern, president of Muncie-based C.S. Kern. Kern notes that his firm now does photography, color separation, typesetting, scanning, printing, Web-site design and hosting, much of it electronic and all under one roof.

With $3 million in sales and 25 employees, C.S. Kern is typical of the printers operating in the state today. The company is heavily computerized, using both Windows and Macintosh platforms, and much of Kern's investment in recent years has been for equipment that will allow him to take advantage of the digital revolution sweeping the communications industry. Recently, Kern remodeled a building in downtown Muncie and installed two T-1 circuits with bandwidth to allow him to connect his clients to high-speed Internet access 24-hours a day, seven days a week.

Going Digital Printers across the country have added a variety of ancillary services in recent years. Below are some examples, along with the percentage of printers that say they offer the services. Desktop-publishing services 64.1% Graphic-design services 43.2% Desktop-publishing consulting 27.1% Electronic file storage 25.5% Database management 13.5% Computer training 10.9% Electronic color printing 10.4% Source: Printing Industries of America Inc. Kern now not only designs Web sites, he hosts them. "We became a direct connection to the Internet," he says. "It's been huge, a major success for me. Our Internet...