"In the aggregate, we’re projecting nominal growth of about 1% next year," PIA president and chief executive Michael Makin told PrintWeek. "Our expectations are for continued growth, albeit very marginal, for the traditional offset printing segment and more of the growth in digital printing.

"The packaging segment will see great growth, direct mail with have growth, but not so much of book printing and not so much for newspapers."

At last week’s GraphExpo at Chicago’s McCormick Place, Makin said he saw renewed optimism across the convention floor, adding he did not think any of that was tied to a one-off election year phenomenon.

"Election years have always meant a bump of about half a percent when it comes to print volume," he explained. "And while this year’s election is very important - and we’ve seen that in the number of ads, including newspapers, that have been done - we have not gotten any evidence that 2012 is going to end up different.

"So it’s definitely having an impact, but I haven’t seen any empirical evidence that it’s more volume than say 2008 or 2004."

Despite the perception that print is some sort of legacy industry, Makin also took time to highlight a lot of the innovations that were showcased at GraphExpo, including printed RFID codes, 3D print, as well as augmented reality.

"These are all new segments for the industry, but there is no reason why the printing industry can’t be producing these ‘circuit boards’ on multiple substrates as part of a printing process," he said. "So whether it’s RFID codes or intelligent barcoding, there are opportunities out there that are being pursued by our members."