中文The Inkers is moving into its second year with a twelve-month mentoring program, building on a successful inaugural year and creating a structured national development pathway for emerging talent across paper, print, packaging, signage and visual media. The Visual Media Association is launching the next evolution of The Inkers, Make Your Mark, with the successful emerging-talent initiative moving into Year Two through a new twelve-month mentoring and professional development program.
Launched in 2025 and 2026, The Inkers established a national network of emerging professionals, brought young talent and their employers together through Bring Your Boss events, and gave its inaugural Markers a direct voice into the industry. The first year was about building the framework, testing what worked and, importantly, listening to what emerging talent wanted from their industry, a research-led start that the association is now converting into structure.
The VMA says Year Two turns those learnings into action. The new twelve-month model combines monthly mentoring, industry connection and a six-part professional development series, providing participants with access to industry leaders, specialist training, major manufacturing sites and a national peer network. CEO Kellie Northwood said the progression reflects exactly what The Inkers was established to achieve, creating a program that evolves with the people it supports.
The first year proved there is an appetite from emerging talent to connect beyond their own businesses, learn more about the wider industry and have a stronger voice in its future, Northwood commented. We built the framework, listened to our Markers and employers, and learnt from that first year. Now we are putting structure around those learnings. The mentoring program is the next step, moving The Inkers from connection into structured career development while retaining the energy and industry voice that made the first year successful.
Northwood stressed that the industry talks a lot about workforce shortages, attraction and skills, but retention is just as important. We have talented people already choosing careers in our industry, she said, and our responsibility is to invest in them, broaden their networks, build their confidence and show them how many opportunities exist across paper, print, packaging, signage and visual media, a message that reframes workforce strategy around keeping the people already in the sector.
The program will be led by VMA GM of Operations Phillip Mariette as Program Director, coordinating mentors, participants, employers and industry partners across the twelve months. Beginning in October, the development series will connect the industry’s past, present and future. Participants will tour one of Australia’s largest commercial print manufacturing sites at IVE Group’s Kemps Creek facility following a visit with the Australian Print Museum in Penrith, bringing together the heritage of print with the technology and scale of modern manufacturing.
The following months will deliver Mental Health First Aid Certificate Training with Steven Gamble of Anchor Health, AI Learn and Train with Swipe Digital, Sustainability and Print 101 with Zaidee Jackson of Ball and Doggett, and Workplace Environment and Career Pathway Setting. The development series will conclude in March with Print is Sexy, Let’s Take It On, led by Northwood and drawing on VMA-commissioned consumer research to build participants’ confidence in communicating the value and relevance of print to modern customers.
Proudly supported by Konica Minolta and Ball and Doggett, with further partners to be announced, the program brings employers, suppliers, trainers and industry leaders together around a shared investment in the next generation. The VMA has also briefed the Hon Andrew Giles MP, Minister for Skills and Training, on The Inkers and its continued development as part of the association’s broader engagement with government. No single organisation can solve the workforce challenge, Northwood concluded, and the strength of The Inkers is bringing everyone into the same conversation and turning it into action.
Source: This article is a reworking of reporting originally published by Print21 (print21.com.au) on 23 September 2026.
The Inkers program arrives against a stubborn backdrop: the printing and visual media industries face not only a shortage of new entrants but also the ageing of a workforce that learned the trade when print was the dominant medium. Attraction gets most of the public attention, but as Northwood rightly stresses, retention of the talented people already choosing the sector is equally decisive. A structured, twelve-month mentoring and development pathway answers that directly, giving emerging professionals a reason to stay by broadening their networks, building confidence and exposing them to the full span of opportunity across paper, print, packaging, signage and visual media. The involvement of major suppliers such as Konica Minolta and Ball and Doggett, and the engagement with government skills policy, also embeds the program in the industry’s power structure rather than leaving it as a fringe initiative. If Year Two converts the framework of Year One into measurable career progression for its Markers, it could become a template other associations replicate.
