INTERVIEW WITH SAMUEL MAX AKRMAN
Hi! ✌️ I’m Sam. I’m a nerd who’s into all things imaging, visual media and color science. Occasional designer. And a future print engineer.
I’m from Czechia, that reasonably-sized country in the middle of Europe. My hometown, Liberec, is located about 100 km north of Prague. Check out the Ještěd Tower – a futuristic mountaintop television transmitter which also doubles as a hotel?? Definitely the coolest landmark of that region. Scroll down for a photo. (Fun fact: that shape is called a “hyperboloid”.)
I’m writing this at the start of my 7th semester of studying Print Media Technologies. This bachelor is the best academic project of my life. Therefore I’d like to explain to you why I think print engineering, and especially our study program, is so wonderful.
When you deal with print people, and especially the techies, you soon realize how incredibly passionate they are about their work. I’ve never seen anything like it. You’ll meet men and women from vastly different backgrounds and fields of education – designers, mechanical engineers, programmers, electricians, chemists… who somehow got involved in slapping ink onto paper. And now they don’t want to do anything else.
So why does that happen? Why does printing just grab people and never lets go? I think it boils down to three things:
- Our work involves attractive, delightful objects – we make pretty things.
- We get to be curious and learn how things actually work.
- We have a niche, which makes for tighter relationships (and a healthier job market).
Delight
The first one might sound obvious, but work becomes so much easier when it revolves around something inherently enjoyable. People like print products. Whether it’s photos of loved ones, pages in a great book, or the package of a favorite snack, almost everyone can think of a printed object that makes them happy. It plays to not just vision, but all the senses (and we humans sure love our senses!)
And guess what, that includes you as well! You are also people, so you get to thrill yourself before anyone else. A print engineer is not too different from an artist in that sense.
Look Under The Hood
“It just works” is a beautiful concept, but then you realize someone first had to develop it like that. And maybe you’re that type of person who likes to look deeper. Who likes to learn about inner workings of stuff. To tinker. With a printout, that can start with just a magnifier – there’s a whole little universe between those ink dots.
But if you want to take a true deep dive, there is no better place than HdM to do it. Our production space has machines in every major print process, every piece of lab equipment you can imagine, and just unbelievable expertise, all under one roof. There’s an incredible sense of curiosity – whatever you want to dabble in, you get to do it.
Specialize
Sometimes, when you tell people you study print engineering, they’ll first say it’s “oddly specific”. And they’re right – but that exactly is one of our strengths! There’s lots of generic study fields out there, oversaturated job markets. But if you find a niche and pursue it, you get a head start, since you’re already a specialist. Let alone what happens after you gain more experience – in a few years’ time you’ll become irreplaceable!