Fun With Print: 25 Mantras That Will Make You Smile

If print jobs could talk to each other; what would they say to each other? Will they be mischievous or profound? A collection of favourite, most insightful, and inspirational print quotes by Noel D'cunha.

03 May 2014 | By Noel D'Cunha

1.  Print was beautiful and simple and there was no FSC or UGRA.

2.  The purpose of a print job, no matter who has printed it, is to ensure you don't pass on the ink to the job above or below you.

3.  Tech-specs are lessons from God.

4.  I tell you, we are here on Earth to play around with ink and water, and don’t let anybody tell you anything different.

5.  All dots, living and dead, are purely coincidental.

6.  QUES: What should young print jobs do with their lives today? ANS: Many things, obviously. Avoid alcohol, solvents and the terrible realisation of not being green.

7.  History is merely a list of surprises. … If not for print most of it would not exist.

8.  The three most powerful things on the print planet are: PET, PP, and currency notes.

9.  Wake up, all ye paper ream and paper rolls! Right now, you are a pure sheet of blank paper; tomorrow, the newspapers will print all kinds of lies on you.

10. How nice to be a human. You're non-tearable, water-proof and have a long shelf-life. 

11. Mr Sigmund Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted. The same can be said about print management firms. No one knows what they want. They just want a whole lot of printers to sell their ideas to.

12. CMYK is a four-letter word.

13. QUES: What did one print job tell another? ANS: My curves are more linear than yours.

 
14. Someone has to invent print that displays a sense of humour. Imagine a POP or POS job that makes you giggle every time you see it. It would be one way to ward off the fear of the unknown tomorrow.

15. True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that a three-piece metal can is running the government.

16. Ultimately, flexible packaging will rest inside a grave-ure.

17. In a monochrome job, it is black magic that works.

18. All print jobs live by the harmless untruth that they should make the balance sheet, healthy and happy.

19. QUES: What is my principal objection to digital print? ANS: It’s too easy. I think, true print is all about making horrible mistakes.

20. The print universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest. The stars are made of gold foil, the clouds are screen printed, the astroids are thermofoamed. 

21. QUES: Who were the finalists for the print boxing competition? ANS: Rigid Box and Corrugated Box.

22. Print is in the moment. One moment is no more important than any other and all moments quickly run away. Imagine what will happen if one day all the books in the world start talking. 
 
23. Time to RIP babies. When one looks at the male-female demographics in some countries; it's probably a good idea to RIP baby files using a cutting edge software for five colour babies, proprietary software for six colour babies, and a hybrid software for a baby with Pantone colours.

24. A print marathon. We can have three types of runs. One is the time taken for set up. So all the presses can be lined up - and then one two three - Off they go! The presses have to do a colour match plus printing 1000 sheets. Who will win? Will the new world record be 11 minutes or 33 minutes? What will be the time taken for an entire print run of 10,000. 320 minutes? Who will win the marathon? Short-run? Long runs? Or will it be a Kenyan, a German, or Usain Bolt?

25. And finally the print motto: Until you perish … you print. Please dream your dreams in lithography or flexography.