Last Days at 2 Union and First at Print Shop

Back at the beginning of this month, I finished up my time at the 2 Union Avenue office, where I worked under Gael Fischer and made advertisements for the college. I have since moved over to the college's print shop, where I help with the final stages of the publication process.

In my previous post, I included some ads that I designed that were all a part of the same campaign. Here are some of the last ones I made while in the office. They were a bit more random.My first day at the print shop was on November 9th. I have been going there every Monday and Friday ever since, and this time I am working under Janet Jones. She is a typesetter/editor and every design is sent to her before it gets printed. I have learned that many designs are changed slightly once they are sent to her, in order for them to be print-ready.

One thing that is quite important is finding out if the publication needs "bleeds" applied to it. A bleed is usually 9 picas (or 1/8th of an inch) and it is the printing--often times an image--that goes beyond the edge of where the paper will be cut. This is necessary because the paper cutters are not 100% precise. It prevents unwanted white space that would be around an image, for example, if the paper were to be cut without a bleed.

I was told about the different forms of book binding. Some examples are "perfect" and "stapled" binding. For stapled binding, pages are set up strangely during the design process; page 1 will be next to or on top of page 24, for instance. This is the way they are printed and will read in the proper order once they are bound.

I was also given a tour of the entire print shop. There are dozens of huge machines that can do just about anything when it comes to printing. It was also pretty neat to be able to see some of the older machines that have since been replaced with newer technology. In my next post, I will include some pictures of these machines.