My name is Kevin R. Donley and I started this blog on May 30, 2008. At that time, I wanted to record my journey to DRUPA, the world’s foremost printing and paper exposition. Beginning in January 2011, after I was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Printing Industries of Michigan, I began writing articles for GraphicNews (monthly publication of PIM) and repurpose these pieces on this Multimediaman blog. In between entries on contemporary business and technology subjects, I also wrote biographical sketches of important people and their inventions in print media history.
My experience with this blog has revealed that the technology achievement of Joannes Gutenberg—even though it appears distant and unrelated to our times—was actually the beginning of a mass media transformation that continues to this day. As much as we would like to think that our digital age has left the analog world far behind, it is in reality a globalized and accelerated electronic expansion of what has been underway for more than five centuries.
This blog is about you. It is called “Multimediaman” because this word describes best what we are. Our big data world of photo, video and text content—enabled by mobile, social, cloud and wireless technologies—is surpassing all previous media forms combined in terms of volume and accessibility. It is now possible for all to communicate with each as artist, printer, publisher, photographer, broadcaster, filmmaker, pod caster, blogger, etc. What were previously specialized professions—requiring significant resources—are now the activity of so many billions of smartphone users around the globe.
And so, here we are creating something new: a colossal multimedia reflection of ourselves. Just like the cave paintings of unknown tribesmen or the works of the great Renaissance masters provide a window into the state of humanity in the prehistoric or medieval context, we can now grasp our present multimedia likeness in real time. It is my hope that this blog makes a contribution to this understanding.
Kevin R. Donley
April 20, 2019
MULTIMEDIAMAN 
Great stuff !
Would love to speak to you live about the “unified-global-color-standards” meeting you attended.
Michael Jahn
Jahn & Associates
PDF Color Conversion Specialist
1824 North Garvin Avenue
Simi Valley
California 93065
Office: (805) 527 8130
Cell: (805) 217 6741
Email: michaelejahn@gmail.com
Skype: michaelejahn
“…the information technology achievement of Joannes Gutenberg—even though it appears distant and unrelated to our times—was actually the beginning of a mass media transformation that continues to this day….”
I couldn’t agree more! I took graphic arts in high school and have worked in prepress since (going on 30 years). I just started working towards my BS in marketing. I see the end coming for the graphics group, in the package engineering department, of the pharmaceutical company I work for.
I found your blog when I was looking for the full version of Goudy’s “I am Type”.
I needed to pick out an image to analyze in my rhetorical writing course. I choose Gutenberg (at work or what have you). I’m having a hard time finding the image I have in mind, I think by Granger, so I can properly cite it. Got any ideas?
Thanks for your comment. I’ve looked at the Granger Collection image you are talking about: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/johann-gutenberg-granger.html. It is a painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris in 1894. He is well known as a painter of scenes from American history, many that were proven to be historically inaccurate. So, without studying the Gutenberg painting carefully, I would approach it with some degree of skepticism. Best regards!