I'm sure no reminder is needed, but just in case I hope the printing industry at large has been doing its bit to generate lots of Valentine's Day print. We are all, in my view, duty-bound to purchase at least one Valentine's Day card, even if it's only for the dog.
During a couple of recent visits to card retailers it seems the Valentine's selection is bigger than ever this year (note to self: buy February birthday cards earlier in 2011). In the personalised card space I saw that Moonpig was busy on the pre-14th Feb promo front, as were new kids on the block Whamoosh! via some sort of promotional tie-up with The Sun.
No doubt M&S makes most of its Valentine's Day profits from flower orders, but I was still surprised they didn't push the personalised card range among alongside its romance-themed promos for flowers, food and lingerie. I'm also rather disappointed that as someone who's ordered more than one card via that service in the past, I didn't receive some sort of promo email encouraging me to do so again. Moonpig streets ahead here - in fact, I've just seen that "due to exceptionally high demand" it isn't taking any more orders for despatch today.
While it may seem a bit strange to mix up love and death, I did want to share this wonderful obituary of George Darker, which appeared in The Telegraph last week. Darker was a legend in the bygone age of Fleet Street printing: "The editor may be God, but the printer is the Almighty". We will not see his like again, but there is still much to love about print.
