Laurel Brunner · Managing Director · Digital Dots · INKISH Honoree 2026

In this engaging and wide-ranging conversation, Laurel Brunner reflects on a life shaped by curiosity, movement, music, technology, and an enduring passion for the printing and publishing industry.

From her love of dancing—fueled by a lifelong connection to music and an energetic personality—to her international upbringing between London, Germany, New York, and California, she shares how cultural mobility shaped her worldview. After leaving a conventional life in the UK at just 21, she moved back to the United States, studied linguistics and English literature at University of California, Los Angeles, and supported herself through college by working with Jonathan Seybold.

What began as a temporary typing assignment evolved into a formative role within the Seybold organization, helping build what would become one of the most influential platforms in desktop publishing and digital prepress. She reflects on the early days of desktop publishing, the revolutionary shift from traditional prepress workflows, and how those foundational years directly connect to today’s digital data-driven publishing ecosystem. The work done then, she explains, laid the groundwork for a world where digital content creation and distribution are accessible to anyone—from novelists to global brands.

Now at 69, Brunner remains deeply engaged in the industry, even as she balances technical writing with her desire to focus more on fiction. As a convenor within an international standards technical committee focused on graphics technology and sustainability, she leads a global working group developing standards for sustainable print. Sustainability, she explains, has always been personal—driven by an intolerance for waste and a belief that efficiency and environmental responsibility can coexist with commercial success.

The conversation explores generational change, industry reinvention, and the tension between what leaders say and what they are willing to give up. She reflects on how innovation often comes from necessity, recalling how the prepress revolution forced companies to become more efficient to survive. The same logic, she argues, applies to sustainability today: real progress often follows commercial incentives.

She also discusses the challenge of being heard in a fast-moving information landscape, the importance of writing in ways that resonate, and how global collaboration—sometimes from the most unexpected places—helps shape meaningful industry standards.

Receiving recognition for her work came as a surprise, especially since she considers herself more of a behind-the-scenes contributor than a visible industry personality. Yet her influence spans decades of transformation in publishing, digital workflows, and sustainability advocacy.

The conversation concludes with reflections on the power of publishing itself. Whether through newspapers, books, labels, or digital substrates, she describes printing as the vehicle through which society shapes and shares knowledge. Events that bring people together person-to-person—without corporate filters—remind her of the early Seybold seminars, where innovation was born in conversation as much as in conference sessions.

A thoughtful and energetic dialogue about global perspective, sustainability, generational responsibility, and the enduring belief that publishing—at its core—shapes how we understand the world.