Day of digital is here: John Kirk

From the moment Chester Carlson produced the first photocopy, to the growing number of offset shops making the switch, digital printing has come a long way. John Kirk of Clayton Utz looks back on some of its biggest achievements.

My mother worked in the Government Printing Office in Canberra before I was born, so I suppose you could say print is in my blood.  It wasn't until the early 1980s when I started to get involved in print.

Mind you, at the time no self-respecting printer would acknowledge the photocopying operator as part of the print industry.  That attitude is different today with digital print being a strong and growing part of the print industry globally.  Most printers now have at a minimum an understanding and respect for the digital print sector, and more and more companies are developing digital arms to their business.

One aspect of the development of digital print that has always been lacking is the recognition of digital print operators as a specific skilled subset of the print industry.  Sadly this has been particularly so in Australia, while other countries like the United Kingdom and New Zealand have had digital qualifications for many years.  In the USA there are complete University courses on digital print with renowned spokesmen such as Frank Romano heavily involved.  In Australia, digital print has been, whilst not ignored, at least discouraged from obtaining qualifications.  This is mainly due to the focus of VET training on traditional print functions and the training package being geared towards traditional print.

December 2001 saw me move back from the world of retail print to the corporate print room.  One of my first tasks was to analyse a report from a major vendor on the state of print in the organisation.  Among other things this report stated that the current staff were not only unwilling, but unable to be trained as digital operators.  As the new supervisor I knew this to be far from the truth. I contacted NSW TAFE and my first step was to organise a two-day course entitled "An Introduction to Digital Print" conducted by TAFE teacher Mark Stegman. 

In 2004, I was involved in a conference in New Zealand at which a PrintNZ team promoted a Diploma in Digital print.  Coming back to Australia inspired, I tried to find the equivalent here, albeit unsuccessfully.  This started a long journey towards making such a qualification a reality.  I began to make enquiries with TAFE about customising a course for digital print.  I worked with some industry stalwarts like Des Hope, Alan Stott, and Allan Wetherell to begin to piece together something.  (NB: A Diploma of Digital Production was included in ICP05 but did not have a specific pathway leading to it.)

In 2005, as Central Branch President of the Network of Inhouse Print Professionals Australasia (NIPPA) I was invited to join the NSW Communications Industry Training Advisory Board (CITAB) on the Print Industry Committee.  It was here that the serious work of creating a recognised digital print qualification pathway was born.  In March 2006, the Innovation Business Skills Australia (IBSA)  invited Bob Snedden, Greg Grace and myself to become part of the inaugural Printing and Graphic Arts Sector Advisory Committee.  This gave us an ability to work with IBSA to shape the training package as industry consultants.

August 2006 saw the Sector Advisory Committee initiate a project that allowed mapping of competencies to vendor training.  This project was run by another NSW CITAB member Wayne McDougall of SkilledForce.  Wayne was able to map a number of vendor based course back to the training package allowing operators who had completed these course to get recognition for them under VET qualifications.

ICP 05 was officially endorsed in September 2005 but it wasn't until late 2006 that I was able to finally fulfil a goal of seeing a group of digital print operators qualify under VET approved qualifications.  In May 2007, after what seemed like an eternity and a lot of bureaucratic manoeuvring we had a small graduation ceremony in our offices at Clayton Utz to celebrate.  Nine people had qualified with a Certificate III in Instant Print which had been modified to reflect a digital print environment. 

In conjunction with Allan Wetherell from Sydney TAFE this course was then promoted to a number of non-traditional print rooms in corporates and bureaus in Sydney.  The result is that now almost 40 students are working towards this qualification in NSW alone.  The course is also being used in Victoria through RMIT, and in the Northern Territory.

The one difficulty with this qualification is that it was, and is, specifically designed for a small offset environment.  Whilst it has been possible to see many operators gain qualifications, the industry needed a specifically designed and formatted VET qualification for the digital print industry.

In October 2008, IBSA began a project to enhance the ICP05 Printing and Graphic Arts Training Package.  With industry consultation taking place across the country and with support from many of those mentioned previously in this article, digital print was finally put on the table and work begun on developing the Digital Print qualifications.  This was endorsed in April this year.

So at last, 19 years after the Xerox Docutech revolutionised instant print, we can finally recognise the skills and qualifications of that ever increasingly "common" digital print operator.

I know that for me at least this has been a great journey.  But as with most journeys it is best shared.  I would like to thank all those who have played a part in this journey but most specifically to Bob Snedden and Allan Wetherell, my partners in this journey, without whom I would never have been able to see this qualification come into being.

John Kirk is print and mailroom manager at Clayton Utz lawyers in Sydney.  He is also a member of the NSW Communications ITAB, the IBSA Sector Advisory Committee, and of NIPPA.