Here’s a question, what do capital equipment companies do during a recession? Well, if the screen and digital imaging industry is any measure, they innovate: and I think I know why.

Having started my own career in product design and then worked in and around the manufacturing sector I have witnessed firsthand the process capital equipment companies operate during the economic cycles. Put simply, original equipment manufacturers are duty bound to listen to their customers’ wants and need and respond by challenging their research and development departments to engineer solutions.

During a recent training event I was talking to an ex cement salesman who used a picture of a brick wall to demonstrate the power of colour. The wall was an amazing mosaic of different colours and patterns. The person asked how many different coloured bricks were used in the design. Various answers came back: five, ten, twenty. The answer was actually one. Once revealed, this ‘trick of the eye’ was simple. It wasn’t the bricks that were different colours, it was the mortar.

By my own admission I'm not a great high street browser. I prefer to know exactly what I want and plan my shopping trips like a military exercises: fast in, fast out. Bluewater is my closest mega venue and I must admit that a certain restaurant has a habit of drawing me back more regularly than I would like to admit.

So it looks like the rate of recession is slowing, suggesting we are approaching the bottom. The big question is where do we go from here? Political and economic commentators are debating the ‘shape' of the recovery will it be a V-shaped rapid bounce back, a W-shaped double dip recession or the slow grind of an L-shaped recovery.

I was walking along a busy high street a few days ago and passed a retail optician. I didn't need my eyes tested at the time, but the shop did draw my attention: unfortunately for all the wrong reasons.

Naturally, with consumers holding their cash tightly, the shop had decided to do some marketing in the form of an A-board in the middle of the pavement. However, the image itself caused some concern due to it comprising a tatty sheet of white paper, taped to the A-board and carrying a poorly hand written message scrawled in black marker pen.

If my past experience is anything to go by, in the run-up to a recession, manufacturers of printing equipment and consumables will be focused on market share  and ‘getting product out the door'.  Then the recession hits, orders slow and restructuring starts. Shop floor capacity is reduced to match demand. But what then? Hopefully outstanding innovation.

Situated central to Maidstone, Canterbury and Ashford I tend share my shopping between the three. A recent outing took me to Ashford where I planned to visit Lidl and the bank. Lidl itself offers the considerable advantage of a free car park just yards from the town centre's one-way system. Hence the excellent footfall.

I recently received a press release from a company highlighting the power of the internet compared with the demise of magazine advertising. Interestingly, the company had sent the press release to the editors of printed magazines. How I laughed at the irony.

So the show season is upon us. In this issue alone we are previewing two exhibitions, Sign and Digital UK and Fespa Digital Europe. In today's internet dominated world, it's fascinating to see how trade magazines and exhibitions have held their own. Magazines thanks to their proactive nature, delivering new ideas to readers' desks in a way an internet search never can. Likewise, shows provide the hands-on, face-to-face environment that builds confidence between suppliers and buyers.

When I first started editing Screen Process and Digital Imaging, some five years ago, I landed headfirst in one of the print industry's greatest debates: when would the new generation of digital print technology unseat analogue processes, namely screen?

I've just returned from my first show of 2009, Publishing Expo at Olympia. Given the economic climate, the show was home to a healthy number of exhibitors and an exceptionally strong seminar programme. It's too early to compare visitor figures with last year but from my personal experience I was running product demonstrations around the clock and the seminar theatre to the left of our stand was rammed for two days.

As a new era of austerity unrolls, many businesses will see their marketing budget as an easy target for cost cutting. More fool them. Unless those printers have a magic wand that guarantees their existing customer base will sustain its business volume and order values (while also paying invoices on time) they will need new customers, fast.

The last 12-months has seen some interesting developments in the screen and digital wideformat market. Digital has continued to place screen under pressure in the graphical display sector. However, large format inkjet and litho are now themselves under attack from multimedia applications. Nowhere is this more evident than the London Underground. Don't worry, the screen, digital, multimedia debate is far from over in the graphic display market.

In a few weeks I head for Electronica, Europe's largest electronic component exhibition. Naturally, there will be a rather large number of electronic components on display. However, a less known fact is that the show will also be home to a huge range of screen printing applications. From printing solder paste onto circuit boards, to applying membrane keypad graphics, screen printing lies at the heart of the electronics industry.

Last week I received an invitation to the auction of the assets of a well known, London-based, large format printer that I've been dealing with for many years. Naturally, my thoughts go out to the staff and suppliers who often pay a disproportionately high price when a business slips into administration.