Primary Research- Interview- Ben Freeman

Ditto Press; publishing, designing, printing, and selling books in East London. Ben Freeman is the Co Founder of Ditto Press, I thought it would be useful to interview him for my dissertation and gather some primary research. 

Website: http://www.dittopress.co.uk/

18th November 2015

After many emails with Ben about when to come down to London, where and when to meet. I finally met him in Shoreditch at Shoreditch House. I recored the interview, he gave some interesting answers that I will be quoting in my dissertation. 

What impact has the digital era had on publication today?

What is your opinion on this?

That is the question that everyone asks, we started our business when the print industry was dying in this country, we started it as a response in what was happening to publishing. Everyone wants to consume information differently; all art students want to design books because its more fun. People are still clinging on to old ways of operating, really I think there is still space in the world for print, but things that are printed you tend to consume them in a different way, more like slow communication. People still enjoy books, magazines and newspapers, they read them in a different way and people absorb information digitally, much faster and with a shorted attention span. When we started our business people started talking about, is print dead? And all of this stuff and its quite a pointless conversation, print is not dead, its just changed. I’m not saying there will always be a space for books and magazines, but there is definitely at the movement space in the market for everything because of the different types of consumption.

What do you think makes a good publication?

Its totally subjective, what you think is a good publication would defiantly be different to what I think is a good publication, but I would say universally what’s good is to be considerate, thoughtful and design something well and have it proof read correctly and not be wasteful. There are a lot of new fashion magazines coming out now and they are of a much higher quality than they were twenty years ago, there’s some really beautiful things out now. In some areas there are more things being printed than before, not more quantity but more variety and of a higher quality, which is great. It’s the same of what makes a good anything really, it’s the same of what makes a good meal or a good building or anything. I think now more than ever there’s no point in being wasteful, that’s the most important thing.

Do you think new media has been a positive for publication? In terms of online blogging, sharing and interactive apps.

Yeah, I mean we use this stuff all of the time, we’ve got twenty thousand Facebook followers and whatever else, it is to communicate parts of our message. We release music digitally, we promote events digitally, we employ online and talk through social media, our audience we talk to through social media, and we sell all of our books online and do all the marketing online. Its crucial, in this day and age you either have to be exceptionally interesting and mysterious and fascinating to be able to get away without doing anything online, or you just fail. Some people do manage it, like there’s a band called Kurupted a Japanese band and they never do interviews, they don’t have any online presents, they don’t do anything like that. Everyone loves them because the music is amazing. But they are deliberately mysterious. They don’t have any form of anything anywhere, but everyone loves them, but that’s very hard to achieve, we can’t all do that.

Do you think the internet has enhanced creativity?

I don’t think it has enhanced it, it probably gives people who don’t work in a creative job more of an opportunity to be creative. Its quite easy to sneer at that stuff, its quite easy to sneer at people with Instagram accounts with hobby pics of cats or whatever, thinking they are being creative, but actually if that fore fills them and makes people feel good, then why not, there’s nothing wrong with that at all. The problem with the internet and creativity is being things like Behance and stuff like that, you get lots of attention for something that is purely superficial, so nobody is looking at the brief, or did it work, did it communicate well or was it appropriate for the audience, all they are thinking about is whether is is pretty, and that’s not good for design at all, because its not what good design is.

Do you think designers are too dependent on computer technology nowadays?

No, not at all. Some people that are exceptionally good with their hands and drawing and stuff as soon as they start doing things digitally they lose the character so the best people understand what each medium is for.

Do you think print publication is dying? And do you think there is any point in trying to save it?

If it is dying I don’t think there is any point trying to save it for the sake of it, I think it evolution isn’t it. Nobody now misses wax cylinders or anything like that, people do miss old school black and white televisions and things like that but only in a nostalgic ridiculous way, its no lost to humanity. We don’t write on wax scribes anymore or tablets, its progress.

Do you think print is more valued?

Only by a very small amount of people. I was in Berlin last year there’s a place called Soho House in Berlin and they literally use books as decoration, they will buy trolleys full of second hand books and just use them to decorate rooms. That would not have happened fifty years ago.

How’s social media enhanced Ditto Press?

Its not that we wouldn’t have advertised before social media, but it makes it much easier for us to have a very accurate audience.

Do you think there is any need for business cards and flyers nowadays? Because of the rise of social media and the digital landscape we live in

Yeah, I mean we use flyers, flyers are still quite useful, but I don’t know things like posters and flyers will still have their place. But I think you have to be much more thoughtful of where your going to put them then you ever used to be. Business cards, I don’t ever use one but I probably should to be honest.

What do you think you would do without the internet?

I mean I’m thirty-seven I remember when there was no internet, people kind of did the same thing it was just a bit more difficult. The internet and computers have made our lives much easier and we can be a lot more productive than we ever used to be. So a job now that will take us a day, would of taken two weeks before. A hundred years ago it would of taken a month. It’s basically just made our lives a lot easier, but its also a sacrifice of if you spend time on something you make it a lot with much higher quality, so that’s the pay off.

The internet is a massive hub of information; do you prefer to read publication online or printed?

I read both for sure, for example Wired, I read Wired on my phone and online and in print all the time, and newspapers ill read the news on my phone and I read books in print.