Is print the vinyl of the marketing world?

Fifteen months ago we finished the house renovation that had taken over a year of my life.

LP spines bathed in the morning sun.

I’d stepped away from freelance work almost entirely to project manage it, and to do a lot of the upstairs work myself. Stripping wallpaper, patching up tired plaster, learning far more about plumbing and electrics than I ever expected to need.

None of that work is anything like my actual job. But it left me thinking about the difference between making something and just moving pixels around.

Now stick with me here but there’s a reason vinyl sales keep climbing even though every song ever recorded sits a tap away on a phone. Streaming rents you access but you own a record. It survives a subscription lapsing or a platform folding.

I think print works the same way. A digital ad is served and it’s gone the moment the scroll continues. A well designed package, a display unit at the point of sale, a brochure that someone picks up and browses through, stays exactly where it is placed until somebody chooses to remove it. It doesn't need the wifi to still be working.

Coming back to print production after a year with my hands covered in plaster dust and paint felt like coming back to something with actual weight to it.

Are you, like me, someone who likes to see a physical product? What's you favourite example from the last couple of months?