The smell of automation is in the air, everything from assembling a car to killing a fly is automated. Just press a button and swish! Things are done! Same is the case with desktop publishing. Growing usage of technical communicators, programmed XML tools and writing scripts is clearly paving a path to complete automation or in some cases to a complete depletion of manual desktop publishing.
Well there is still a segment where automation is nothing more than a productivity or efficiency-adder and that is the creativity. Creative resources like printed manuals, sales collateral, website designs, marketing and promotional materials, product packaging etc need a proper layout that is a valuable additive and correctly projects the brand image of the company.
In translations too, some programmed memory tools do have the capability to restore the basic formatting and page structure as of the original document. However, the derived output is not always the final one. It requires a finishing touch (also termed as repagination) which includes removal of dead spaces, unwanted blank pages, uneven page numbering and irregular page margins to set it up right and ready to go.
Coming to the conclusion – Undoubtedly, the industry will move towards the automated or should I say the ‘open-sourced’ era as it is creating a thrust in the overall efficiency, however, there are still some areas ruled by originality, creativity and manual interaction.
What are your thoughts on this – how is this growing trend of automation and open source software impacting the desktop publishing segment? Are translation memory tools productive if translating in different scripts such as Chinese or Korean?
Typesetting, as in hiring yourself out as a ‘Desktop Publishing Artist’ to create pages has been pretty much dead for many years. The minute that loads of high-school kids started downloading copies of Quark XPress and put their dads flyers and leaflets together, that was it. A local paper’s DTP division has been outsourced to a company on the other side of the country and another paper I used to work for is discussing outsourcing page make-up to China. Long before that, 'Mac Operator’s as they were referred to had their jobs marginalized and their talents talked down till their pay was little better than minimum wage.
As a Graphic Designer I see Desktop Publishing as the bane of my profession. With the ease of automation and the proliferation of DTP software it is easy for companies to set up to do their own work. Companies have downsized on the number of Graphic Designers they have and tend to hire people with “Desktop Publishing Skills” rather than someone who has a strong Graphic Design skillset.
The growing trend of automation and open source software has made it possible for low-skilled people to get jobs at relatively comfortable hourly wages. It also has decreased the need for higher skilled designers as companies now can assign the task to any employee who can download and run the software.
Here in the United States, DTP has grown significantly and continues to expand as a industry and an alternative to Graphic Design. In the future I see it expanding even more and becoming more automated (basically cut and paste).
I have observed a good way to go is to become the “Desktop Publishing Artist” as companies seem to perceive it as more valuable (less training, more work output). Here in the United States there are more jobs and career options for the “Desktop Publishing Artist” rather than the “Graphic Designer.”
I also have observed that a great deal of printing is actually outsourced from the United States to Canada or China. The DTP jobs will continue the grow in the United States while printing is outsourced. I find this ironic because of the infrastructure of printers we have in the Eastern United States.