Team Impression - Day 1

It was my first day at Team today. After having a chat about what I wanted to get out of the two weeks. We decided it would be really good if I got the chance to see a job right from the beginning to the end, and if time permitted it would be good to be able to do it with some of my work. I spent my first day in repro which is where the work is received and sorted out before it goes to press. I spend the morning with Eddie who deals more with litho repro and the afternoon with Snowy who does more digital jobs.

The amount of information I've taken in today was a bit overwhelming but so so interesting. I've made about 6 pages of notes so hopefully I won't forget too much. I'll try go give a basic idea of what happens here.

Work generally comes in and is first of all checked out to make sure everything is in order, fonts, graphics, layout ect. It has to be made sure that the layout is correct depending on how the print will be finished, for example, tri-folded leaflets need the inner section to be 2mm shorter than the others in order to stop the outer side from buckling over the fold. This is also when any special finished are checked such as cuts, metallic inks or foils. The areas for these finishes need to be on a separate layer, and in a colour that stands out against whats underneath. It is important that they are set as a spot colour so information about them is not sent to the press as part of the 4 colour process. They also need to be set as an overprint. This is very important because if they aren't, whatever is underneath gets cut out and will left white. PDFs of the special layers are made and sent to the finishing department.

Now the impositioning happens. The process is slightly different depending on whether the job is litho of digital. Digital jobs use a workflow plugin called Smartstream. This lets you decide where on the piece of paper the page sits, and how many, as well as how the document is bound (eg saddle stiched, perfect bound, hard case ect) Smartstream creates a template (the imposition) for the pages then imports the data into the template and produces a file extension that the digital presses understand. Here hi and lo res PDFs can also be created to send to proofing printers and clients.

Litho jobs use a much more advanced workflow system called XMF. XMF in essence does the same thing as Smartstream but gives much more control over what can be done on the imposition. This includes having more than one page size on the plate, and creating sections for different materials ect. When a PDF is  brought into XMF, hi and lo res proofs are sent to the corresponding printers in the office for mock ups, a lo red PDF is made to send to the client and most importantly the information in the PDF is translated into the development information which is sent down to the machines that expose the plates that will then go on the press.

The amount, and speed of the work happening was unreal. Jobs were coming in, being sent down to the plates and going on press that same night to run through the night and print thousands and thousands of copies. It really is a non stop hive or activity. Apparently I might be in time to see the next issue of grafik come through which is apparently a ridiculously short deadline for the turnaround.