Old printers never die – Paul Lynch plans to leave a lasting impression

He takes particular issue with the font size in The Age, dubbing it practically unreadable. “You just can’t read it,” he says. “I don’t know why they publish it; it’s just put there and you like it or lump it.” The 70-year-old suggests the newspaper provide a free magnifying glass for every reader.

Beginning a six-year apprenticeship as a hand compositor and linotype operator at Andersons Printing and Publishing, Lynch went on to work for companies such as CSIRO and the Australian Chamber of Manufacturers. During the 1960s he was a member of Melbourne’s Printing Week committee which ran workshops and information days under the banner ‘Printing is Permanent’, enticing youth to become involved in the industry. A Collie Trust scholarship enabled him to study short-run publication work and electronic typesetting in America and Europe.

With decades of printing experience, Lynch believes that “printing has lost its public face” and has instead been taken over by instant quick-print type operations. “People don’t realise the significance of it [printing],” he says. “The industry has let people criticise junk mail; but the industry is not defending it. The only people you see defending it are the direct mail people, not the printing industry and I think that’s where the industry’s lost the debate.”

Along with fellow printing friends, Lynch has plans to open The Museum of Lasting Impressions, a letterpress print museum in Geelong in the future.
Along time fan of Print 21 magazine, Lynch says, “Thank you for your magazine over the years. It is getting more difficult to understand the ‘boxes’ that have replaced what us oldies did with our hands and lots of ingenuity … it’s time to get the golf handicap moving down and holiday.”