MOODBOARD: "OMNI MAGAZINE'S 'FUTURE ALMANAC' " (1982). I'LL BE TAKING SCREENSHOTS FROM RANDOM PAGES OF THE ALMANAC, AND POSTING THEM AS MOODBOARDS. ONE HAS TO ADMIRE THE OVER EXAGGERATION OF PREDICTIONS, PARTICULARLY WHEN LOOKING 40 YEARS INTO THE FUTURE FROM THE EARLY 1980S, AT WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN OUR TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS. SOME PREDICTIONS ARE ON THE MONEY, A LOT WERE NOT. (UPDATE 3)

The hypothesis or prediction of Future printing is somewhat correct, as least as projection going into the 1990s.  But, the internet changed everything, and digital self publishing became the norm, yet the desire to have printed books did not completely diminish, but the prices for a printed novel/magazine have indeed skyrocketed.  Also note the prediction that ink-jet printers will be the new norm for the publishing industry, which the Almanac got half right, yet it shows how rapid digital technology has surpassed assumptions of how books will be printed.  Also, just like this 1982 Almanac, scanning and storage technology has become so sophisticated now, that the future of publications is going to be data storage, and archiving of books and magazines.

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"Publishing's Future

The invention of movable type began the publishing industry. Throughout the centuries, innovations in printing techniques and hardware enabled that industry to grow and new trends to appear.

Roll-fed web presses replaced sheet-fed presses and allowed newspapers and magazines to be printed in mass numbers. Individual, hand-set type elements gave way fo linotype. Today, the system of movable type and letterpresses has been replaced by photo typesetting and offset lithography.

The increased scarcity of raw materials, particularly wood pulp, and their rising costs, will force publishers to re-evaluate traditional publishing technology throughout the remainder of this century. Public resistance to higher book prices, both in mass market and hardcover editions, has already forced many publishing companies to reduce their lists and staffs substantially. As cover prices for traditional books continue to escalate, houses will have to adopt alternative methods of publishing or else go out of business. :

Printing Technology

The most influential new force in publishing will be the computer. These machines can be used to enter text matter, create images of words on paper, and store entire pages of a book, newspaper, or magazine. Finally, computers will give the proper instructions to new printing presses that will not require plates.

Here is an outline of how publishing companies and printing plants will operate in the near future.

e Authors will enter their text either on a computer terminal linked by telephone (or other type of cable) to a publisher's central computer. These writers will most likely use their own word processors. Although word processors have rapidly become commonplace in offices, they will move into the hands of professional writers by necessity. The increasing mechanization of publishing will require that writers buy and use word processors to increase their productivity and have their texts be compatible with publishers’ computer systems.

Manuscripts on paper may all but vanish, since text will be shuttled between writer and publisher in this electronic method. Dialogue between writers and editors will also take place electronically, and each will be able to see and make revisions to a manuscript instantly, while linked to a central storage computer. Of course, an old-fashioned editor, unwilling to work off a screen, will be able to get a computer printout of a manuscript, on which he or she will be able to make corrections.

Once the text is written and edited, designers will visualize, create, and lay out pages on a video screen. Photographs and other graphic elements will be digitized—reduced to numbers in solid state memory—so that they can be cropped, enlarged, or enhanced, and then integrated with text set in type on the pages. The typesetter’s job will be virtually eliminated, with the computer able to transform the author's text into justified galley pages at the flick of a key.

 Offset lithography printing plates will be made electronically, from the information in computer memory. This technology, however, will slowly begin to disappear during the next century as lithography is replaced by ink-jet printing and electrostatic presses. Ink-jet printers create images on paper by painting each page with precision, high-speed ink sprayers. This type of printer (it cannot be described as a press, since no impression is actually made) will not use printing plates or type. It can also be programmed so that a single ink-jet printer can produce all the pages of a book sequentially, eliminating the need to sort or collate individual sheets of paper. Electrostatic printers, essentially scaled up and high-speed adaptations of Xerox copiers, will not require plates, or even ink. They will print pages by scanning with a computer controlled, needle-thin beam of laser light.

Color printing, too, will change, first with the widespread use of lasers to create color separations and printing plates. By the next century, it appears likely that ink-jet printers and electrostatic presses will replace conventional lithography for high-quality color reproduction."