Commentary: Honored to Be Part of Printing Impressions Magazine's 65th Anniversary Milestone

Printing Impressions launched as a tabloid-size newspaper in June 1958.

Albert Einstein once said, “If you want to know the future, look at the past.” That quote seems to fit the 65th anniversary of Printing Impressions being celebrated this month. Our publication’s roots go back to Irvin “Irv” J. Borowsky, who started his own printing operation at age 14 to help support his family after his father died. As an adult, that same entrepreneurial spirit led him to launch TV Digest — a weekly television guide for the Philadelphia market — in 1948 to help keep his presses busy.

Irv Borowsky used the money from selling TV Digest to start a publishing company.

Borowsky would eventually sell the publication to Walter Annenberg, who turned it and a handful of other regional listings guides into the iconic national publication, TV Guide. The proceeds helped Borowsky found North American Publishing Co. (NAPCO) in early 1958, and then launch Printing Impressions as a national tabloid newspaper 65 years ago this month.

It was a bold, some might even consider reckless, business endeavor — given that there were already about a dozen established trade magazines serving the commercial printing industry at the time. But, being a printer himself, Borowsky felt none of them focused enough on how to effectively manage a successful printing company. Those other publications are now long-gone, validating his vision.

With Printing Impressions as the flagship publication, NAPCO would go on to launch, or acquire, sister titles for the in-plant, packaging, wide-format, publishing, and promotional products markets. And — just as print providers have embraced value-added services — the trade magazine publishing company extended its offerings beyond the printed publications themselves into producing events, e-newsletters, videos, webinars, research, marketing services, and much more. 

NAPCO was eventually taken over by his son, who would go on to sell the publishing company to SGIA in 2019. Like Irv Borowsky (who passed away in 2014 at age 90), SGIA CEO Ford Bowers — in tandem with NAPCO senior executives Dave Leskusky, Mark Subers, and Chris Curran — had the keen vision to see how NAPCO, and the print markets its various titles served, could be a perfect complement. Bowers saw that convergence among once disparate print markets was occurring throughout the industry, and envisioned that a comprehensive umbrella association — and its all-under-one-roof annual trade show that showcases the full breadth of growth opportunities in new markets — would best serve the needs of an evolving industry. 

The acquisition of NAPCO by SGIA, coupled with a merger with Printing Industries of America (PIA), led to the creation of PRINTING United Alliance.

After joining NAPCO in January of 1982, I served as the editor of various titles, before assuming my current role as editor-in-chief of Irv Borowsky’s “baby” — Printing Impressions — in 1985. Since then until today, I’ve marveled at the countless printing industry visionaries who, like Borowsky, possess entrepreneurial spirits, relentless determination, insight, and, more importantly, a willingness to take chances and then be able to pivot from any setbacks encountered along the way. 

It’s been an incredible, more than four-decade-long journey for me to nurture the Printing Impressions brand and be part of our great industry — one for which I’m eternally grateful for having the ability to experience and chronicle along the way.