In the middle of back-to-school season, HP gathered Filipino families in Manila to revisit a question quietly fading from modern life: what does print still mean when everything lives on a screen? Through hands-on creation rather than argument, the company offered an answer rooted not in nostalgia but in the human need to hold memory, support learning, and build something tangible from the digital flood of daily life. The event suggested that print and digital are not rivals but companions — each serving a different kind of permanence.
HP celebrates print's creative power at INKredible Learning Day workshop
Print gives us a chance to slow down and transform moments into something we can hold
Why does a tech company like HP spend energy promoting print when the entire industry narrative is about going digital?
Because print and digital are not actually in competition. A family printing photos to make a scrapbook is not choosing print over their phone—they are using both. The phone is where the memory lives. Print is where it becomes real.
But couldn't you just show people the photos on a screen?
You could. But a screen is temporary. You scroll past it. A printed photo sits on a shelf. Your child sees it every day. That is a different kind of memory.
So this is really about emotion, not technology.
It is about both. The technology—a printer that does not cost a fortune to run, that connects wirelessly, that produces color that does not fade—makes the emotional choice possible. Without the technology working well, people will not bother.
What about small business owners? Why would they care about this workshop?
Because they need to produce marketing materials, business cards, flyers. If printing is expensive and complicated, they will not do it. If it is cheap and simple, they will. A printer that handles high volume without breaking the budget changes what is possible for a small operation.
Is HP betting that print will come back?
No. HP is betting that print never really left. It just got forgotten because the conversation moved on to screens. The workshop is a reminder that the two tools serve different purposes.
Der Puls
- Families are drowning in digital memories that never leave their phones, and HP's INKredible Learning Day challenged that inertia by putting ink, paper, and photographs directly into their hands.
- Visual artist Geloy Concepcion turned the workshop into a live demonstration that the distance between a digital idea and a physical keepsake is far smaller than most people assume.
- The HP Smart Tank 580 was positioned not as a premium gadget but as practical infrastructure — a refillable, wireless, high-volume printer built for the real economics of school projects, creative batches, and small business marketing.
- HP Philippines managing director Ida Evina Ong-Co made the company's central argument explicit: print has not been replaced by digital tools, it has simply been waiting for a clear and low-friction reason to matter again.
- The event closed with an online sharing contest, turning participants into advocates — a corporate move, yes, but also a genuine reflection of how people relate to things they have made with their own hands.
In the middle of back-to-school season, HP gathered Filipino families in Manila to revisit a question quietly fading from modern life: what does print still mean when everything lives on a screen? Through hands-on creation rather than argument, the company offered an answer rooted not in nostalgia but in the human need to hold memory, support learning, and build something tangible from the digital flood of daily life. The event suggested that print and digital are not rivals but companions — each serving a different kind of permanence.
On a summer afternoon during the back-to-school rush, HP hosted INKredible Learning Day — a workshop built around a question many have quietly stopped asking: what is print actually for anymore? The company's answer was not sentimental. It was practical and human: a way to rescue memories from inside our phones, to create learning materials that land differently than screens do, and to give small businesses something tangible to hand a customer.
Visual artist and storyteller Geloy Concepcion led families through stations filled with printed photographs, stickers, postcards, and HP Printables — templates he had illustrated himself. Parents and children worked side by side, turning digital moments into objects they could hold and display. Concepcion put it plainly: we are constantly creating memories, but most of them stay trapped in our devices. Print, he argued, is the act of slowing down long enough to make something real from them. The workshop proved the point by doing it, not explaining it.
At the center of the event sat the HP Smart Tank 580 — a wireless, refillable-ink printer designed for high-volume work without the punishing economics of traditional cartridges. It was framed not as a luxury but as infrastructure: the kind of machine that makes sense for a household printing school materials, a creator producing work in batches, or a small business owner who cannot afford to watch a supply budget disappear page by page.
HP Philippines managing director Ida Evina Ong-Co anchored the day's larger argument: that print has not been defeated by digital, only waiting for the right conditions to be useful again. The workshop ended with an online sharing contest, inviting participants to post their creations for a chance to win the featured printer — a familiar marketing move, but one that also captured something true. People want the things they make to be seen. Print, it turns out, is not gone. It is simply waiting for a clear enough reason to exist.
On a summer afternoon during the back-to-school rush, HP gathered families in a workshop designed to answer a question many have stopped asking: what is print actually for anymore? The answer, the company wanted to show, was not nostalgia. It was something more practical and more human—a way to hold onto the moments that live in our phones, to create learning materials that stick in memory differently than screens do, to build small businesses on something tangible.
The event, called INKredible Learning Day, brought in Geloy Concepcion, a visual artist and storyteller, to guide families through hands-on activities. Concepcion set up stations with printed photographs, stickers, postcards, and HP Printables—templates he had illustrated himself. Parents and children worked together to personalize keepsakes, turning digital memories into objects they could hold, display, and share. The workshop was not a lecture about why print matters. It was an invitation to experience it.
Concepcion spoke about the gap between creation and preservation. "We're constantly creating memories, but so many of them stay inside our phones," he said. "Print gives us a chance to slow down, revisit those moments, and transform them into something we can see, hold, and share with the people around us." He emphasized that creativity does not require complexity—it can begin with a photograph, a story, or a blank piece of paper. The workshop demonstrated this principle in real time, showing families that the barrier between idea and finished object is often smaller than they think.
The practical centerpiece was the HP Smart Tank 580, a printer designed for high-volume work without the friction of traditional inkjet economics. The machine handles color printing, scanning, and copying, connects wirelessly, and uses refillable ink tanks rather than cartridges—a cost structure that makes sense for families printing school materials, for creators producing batches of work, and for small business owners who need to produce marketing materials without watching their supply budget evaporate. The printer was not presented as a luxury. It was presented as infrastructure for the kind of work people actually do.
Ida Evina Ong-Co, HP Philippines' managing director, framed the event around a specific claim: that print has a place in everyday life that digital tools have not replaced. "Print continues to have a meaningful place in our everyday lives—not only as a tool for productivity, but also as a way to support learning, encourage creativity, and preserve the moments that matter most," she said. The statement acknowledges that screens are not going anywhere. It argues instead that print and digital are not competitors but companions, each suited to different kinds of work and different kinds of memory.
The workshop concluded with a social media component—the INKredible Post Award, where participants could share their creations online for a chance to win an HP Smart Tank 580. The structure is familiar corporate strategy: turn attendees into marketers, extend the reach of the event through user-generated content. But it also reflects something real about how people actually engage with the things they make. They want to show them. They want them seen.
What HP was testing at INKredible Learning Day was whether families and small business owners still see print as worth the effort and the cost. The answer from the workshop itself was yes—but only if the friction is low, the results are visible, and the purpose is clear. Print is not dead. It is waiting for the right reason to exist.
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Print gives us a chance to slow down, revisit those moments, and transform them into something we can see, hold, and share with the people around us.— Geloy Concepcion, visual artist and storyteller
Print continues to have a meaningful place in our everyday lives—not only as a tool for productivity, but also as a way to support learning, encourage creativity, and preserve the moments that matter most.— Ida Evina Ong-Co, Managing Director of HP Philippines