There isn’t one obvious route into print. Marija Jelkic and Urška Klenovšek, both PhD students, and Masters students Fabijan Kovačević and Filip Jakob Špendl arrived through different combinations of family businesses, university programs, art, technology, and early work experiences in Slovenia and Croatia. What emerges from their collective conversation is a reminder that print can become much more compelling once a young person actually sees how an idea becomes a physical object. Color management, embellishment, substrates, production processes, and the technical problem-solving behind a finished piece can turn an abstract academic subject into something tangible.
That makes practical experience especially important. The students describe a noticeable difference between learning chemistry, physics, processes, and other theory in a classroom and actually applying that knowledge inside a print operation. Working with UV varnish, foil, embossing, debossing, and other production techniques helped connect lessons to real outcomes. Just as important, workplaces that allowed young employees to try things, ask questions, and occasionally mess up gave them confidence. Their message to employers is worth hearing: An internship provides far more value when a student is brought close to meaningful work rather than kept safely at the edges of production.
Their conversation also reflects a generation thinking critically about AI, sustainability, technology, and human creativity. They see technology changing the work they may eventually do, but they also express appreciation for craftsmanship, authenticity, and the human decisions behind printed products. Rather than treating print as an old industry they happened to inherit, they talk about it as a technical and creative field they are still discovering — one in which digital tools and traditional production knowledge can coexist.
For print leaders concerned about attracting the next generation, there’s an encouraging takeaway here. Young people don’t necessarily need a polished pitch about why they should love print. They need access to it. Let them touch the materials, see the machines, solve a genuine production problem, work alongside experienced people, and understand why something that looks simple can be surprisingly difficult to make. The more closely education and industry can create those experiences together, the easier it becomes for a student to look at print and think: I could see myself doing this.
