About Deutscher Drucker

Deutscher Drucker

Deutscher Drucker is the oldest German-language trade journal for the printing industry, published from Ostfildern near Stuttgart by the Deutscher Drucker Verlagsgesellschaft, a branch of the Ebner Media Group. First published in 1894 as Deutscher Buch- und Steindrucker, re-established in 1965 after the Second World War, and merged in 1991 with the Leipzig journal Papier und Druck, it has chronicled the German printing industry through letterpress, offset and digital revolutions. Appearing 23 times a year, it addresses executives and specialists in printing companies, the supplier industry and print buyers, with technical reports, market analyses, business background and the IVW-audited industry portal print.de. Its publisher also produces the quarterly Grafische Palette and organises the reader-voted International Print Technology Awards.

Overview

The printing industry in Germany, though transformed by digitalisation, remains a significant industrial sector, and Deutscher Drucker is its longest-serving journalistic voice. The journal's readers are the decision-makers of the industry: owners and managers of printing companies, production and prepress specialists, and the supplier industry of press manufacturers, paper producers and software providers, as well as "print buyers", the corporate customers who commission printed products. The editorial programme is built for this professional audience, combining technical depth with business relevance.

A typical publishing year of 23 issues mixes technology reports on presses, prepress workflows, colour management and finishing with market comparisons, company portraits and reportage on personalities of the industry. Economic background articles address the structural challenges of the sector: overcapacity, price pressure, consolidation, the shift from commercial to packaging and label printing, and the opportunities of digital and web-to-print business models. The journal thus serves both as a technical reference and as a business compass for an industry in permanent transformation. Its longevity gives it a particular authority: few publications have observed the industry's cycles as continuously, from the post-war reconstruction boom through the offset revolution, the desktop publishing disruption of the 1980s and 1990s, and the current era of industrial digital printing and highly automated, data-driven production.

The brand extends beyond print into the IVW-audited portal print.de, one of the most-visited industry websites in the German printing sector, and into the International Print Technology Awards, in which readers vote on the best technology innovations. The publisher's portfolio also includes the quarterly Grafische Palette, giving the house two complementary voices in the print and media technology market.

History

The journal's history begins in 1894, when it was first published as Deutscher Buch- und Steindrucker, serving the letterpress and lithographic printers of the German Empire. Like many German publications, it was forced to cease publication during the Second World War. In 1965 it was re-founded in Stuttgart by Kurt Kohlhammer, re-establishing the title in the Federal Republic's booming print industry, which was then transitioning from letterpress to offset lithography.

The reunification of Germany brought the next milestone: in 1991 the title was merged with Papier und Druck, the specialist journal published in Leipzig in the former GDR, uniting the printing press traditions of East and West in a single publication. In November 2009 the journal underwent a comprehensive relaunch, receiving a new content structure and a new magazine format of 230 by 300 millimetres, modernising its appearance for the digital age.

The publisher, Deutscher Drucker Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, operates as a branch of the Ebner Media Group based in Ulm, one of Germany's large specialist publishing groups. The editorial office is located in Ostfildern near Stuttgart, in the heart of the south-west German printing and engineering region. Over the decades the publishing house has repeatedly adapted its portfolio to technological change, at times publishing titles such as Publishing Praxis for digital workflows, and today focusing on Deutscher Drucker, Grafische Palette and the print.de portal. The 1991 merger with the Leipzig journal Papier und Druck was more than an administrative act: it brought together two distinct journalistic traditions, the West German trade press shaped by the market economy and the East German specialist press shaped by the planned economy, in a single editorial team.

Coverage and Content

The technical coverage follows the entire print production chain: prepress and workflow software, colour management, printing presses in all processes, from sheetfed and web offset to flexo, gravure, screen and digital printing, as well as postpress, finishing and embellishment. Test reports and market comparisons help investment decision-makers evaluate new equipment, while application reports show how printing companies have implemented new technologies in practice.

Business journalism is the second pillar. The journal reports on mergers and acquisitions, insolvencies and restructurings in the industry, on the strategies of the major press manufacturers, and on the economic framework conditions from energy costs to skilled-labour shortages. Portraits of industry personalities and company reportage give the coverage a human face, while the awards and reader votes create engagement around technological innovation.

The International Print Technology Awards, decided by online reader vote among the readers of Deutscher Drucker, its international edition, Grafische Palette and print.de, honour outstanding technology innovations in categories such as prepress and management information systems. The portal print.de extends the coverage into daily news, with the website's reporting on manufacturers such as Heidelberger Druckmaschinen demonstrating the brand's closeness to the industry's key players. Trade fair coverage is another fixed element: the journal reports extensively from drupa in Düsseldorf, the world's largest printing trade fair, as well as from FESPA and other industry events, giving readers who cannot attend a comprehensive picture of new product launches and technology trends.

Organization and Ownership

Deutscher Drucker is published by the Deutscher Drucker Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, a branch of the Ebner Media Group GmbH & Co. KG based in Ulm. The editorial office is in Ostfildern near Stuttgart. The editor-in-chief is Bernhard Niemela, according to reference sources. The publishing house also produces the quarterly Grafische Palette and operates the print.de portal, with the Flexo+Tief-Druck journal for packaging printing published by its subsidiary G&K TechMedia in Emmendingen.

The business model combines subscriptions from printing companies and industry professionals, single-issue sales, advertising from press manufacturers, paper producers, software companies and other suppliers, and digital revenues from the portal. The reader-voted awards generate industry engagement and sponsoring opportunities, reinforcing the brand's central position in the German printing community. The sold circulation of around 4,300 copies with a distributed circulation of over 6,200 reflects a focused professional readership: in a consolidating industry, the journal reaches the owners and managers who make investment decisions, which is precisely the audience its advertisers seek.

Digital Presence

The portal print.de is the digital flagship of the brand, an IVW-audited industry website that publishes daily news from the printing world, from manufacturer announcements to market analyses. The site hosts the online voting for the International Print Technology Awards and serves as the archive and research tool for the industry, complementing the 23 print issues per year with continuous digital coverage.

The publisher's digital infrastructure includes the online presences of the Grafische Palette and the e-commerce and subscription services for the print titles. On the portal, readers find the same blend of technology and business journalism that defines the print journal, optimised for daily use. For an industry that has itself been transformed by digital technology, the brand's combination of a historic print journal and a leading industry portal mirrors the hybrid reality of modern print businesses, which operate between analogue craft and digital workflow.