Designers and Printers just can’t live without one another, we sustain each other in a way that if you take one away, the other ceases to exist. Well, I mean us graphic designers could probably deal with just digital but that would be mighty boring.
Anyway here’s the fun part, we went and hand a cheeky look around at Zenith Media, a printing group based in London, and New Inn in Wales. We hit up the one in New Inn to see how things roll (quite literally) with the different processes they have going on as well as the multitude of paper, finishes and binding they have available to clients.
Proofing
Colour Proofs before being sent to final prints
First off we had a look at the proofing process, probably the most important factor before actually getting to the actual print job; to make sure that the colours, sizes, etc. are all good everything is checked on the proofing printer, giving a choice of low resolution print – for checking if all elements are there, such as pictures and such – and high resolution print – for checking colours and paper are the right choices before being sent to final print. Some real techie stuff now: so all printers have a colour profile they use so that all prints come out the same, and as such the clients should use the same colour profile that their printer is using. For example, Zenith are using the newest colour profiles* FOGRAV51 and FOGRAV52, for uncoated and coated paper respectively. Each one changes based on what they are for and therefore if the client uses, they can end up with different colour shades coming out the other end.
*To note, these colour profiles are currently still in beta testing and there is a lot of information that doesn’t need to be placed in here, but if you want to read about why they updated the profile have a little read here
Lithography
Aluminium plates for Lithography printing
After that small briefing on colour and proofing, we went over to look at the first part of the lithography printing process, the super cool and slighty-retro-but-not-really-because-people-still-use-it-so-more-like-really-old way of printing. When designing work in Adobe or similar software there are two different colour types to choice: RGB and CMYK. RGB (Red, Green, Blue) is the type you want to be using for digital work such as webpages as that’s the colours the screen deals with, whereas printing uses CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) which adds a greater depth of detail and colour combinations.
Anyway, here we saw the machines that etch, very lightly, into the aluminium plates so that they hold their specific colour, and there will be one plate for each colour. These plates will then be added to their respective colour on a printer before the paper gets whizzed through super fast.
The front of a Printer, chugging through hundreds of pieces of paper
So big sheets of paper go through a super big printer that threads paper through at 18000 sheets an hour and comes out the other side looking super nice and ready to be cut up into their desired sizes.
Boom. Dusty Shoe.
Also you may notice that on the image of the printer above, there is a ton of dust on the side of it, which is from all the paper itself and due to the static sticks to the first things it comes into contact with, which is usually the outside of the printers as well as the floor.
Finishes
That shiny bit Charlotte is pointing at is the UV Varnish added to the print
The coolest thing about printing in my eyes is the different finishes you can get on the finished product, things like UV Varnishing and Foiling both look and feel luxurious, and just adds an extra nice touch overall. These processes don’t come cheap by the way, you’re going to be adding a hefty sum on top for it, but who cares when it looks this good. Designers will often make designs with this specific look and style in mind, because a lot of hierarchy changes once you make edits to the final print with things such as embossing and foiling.
Again, that shiny silver bit is foiling pressed on using a foil press
They had some specialised machines for doing jobs like these like the famous Heidelberg Printers for embossing and lamination, but older models from over 60 years ago which, apparently, hadn’t broken down on them since they had them. It’s special items like this that allow print to stand out so much more than digital work, and make in worth so much more.
Binding
SONY DSC
There a quite a few different binding techniques nowadays, but the two that are most popular are the saddle stitch and perfect bound. These two are used for different paper weights as well as
Digital & Large Scale
Apart from the rest of the printing is the digital and large scale printing, which involves a smaller number of people, but creates those MASSIVE pieces you can see hanging in shopping centres, stadiums and for large scale promotion, as well as for companies that only want small amounts of pieces printed, such as a run of 500 leaflets for example.
A pretty big print in an even prettier pink
Being able to step into a printers is something that students are rarely able to do, especially to look around the floor space itself, and it definitely gives a sense of how important of a role they play in the design industry.
Wincing The Days Away 