Design Practice

Today myself and Laura visited Fast Signs which is a commercial printers which produce work for a range of clients. We came across it on the way to visit another company in the area.

We went into the business and asked them a few questions about commercial print and the type of ink they use. They were quite helpful though they do not use environmentally friendly inks which are available now a days. The lady behind the counter did not really have a huge idea about the process which a design goes through when it is being printed and we unfortunately were not able to speak to any of the managers as they were not available.

This visit was not incredibly helpful to me personally but it did allow me to take some photos of the work which they produce an also provided a glimpse into the world of commercial print.

Timeline of the company in the reception of the building.

Way-finding printing.

Today I paid a visit to a commercial print company in Leeds called LGP. Both Laura and myself took it upon ourselves to visit the printers in our own time. My info-pack is based around commercial print more than print which would be done within the college. I felt like I had limited knowledge about the world of commercial print and being that this industry is the one I will be dealing with within my career I felt it was important to go and speak to people who are already in the industry as they will be able to give me the most useful tips.

I found the printers whilst carrying out a quick google search and this was the one which I felt had the best website and overall look. We arrived at the company without calling ahead which was quite a brave thing to do but we met the manager, Phillip, at the door and explained who we were and he invited us in to have a tour of the building. We were inside the building for over an hour and he talked us through all of the different printers and what they offer.

We started with Lithoprint. He took us to a small room which had a printer in which made the plates which are made to go through the Litho machine. He described the process which they use as CFO which means Computer to plate. This process means that the plate will take a fraction of the time to develop than it would if they were to use the old way to prepare a plate.

He explained that each Litho plate is made from a piece of aluminium which goes through the printer where water and ink are added. Phil explained that ink and water don't mix which allows the different areas of the plate to be separated. The first stage of this process is to add water to the plate via rollers , this will then repel the ink which will be added second. It is important to add water to the plate or the ink will stick to the whole plate and mark the image/type area. This was very eye opening for me because I did not know this was how a plate was made and developed.

Phil also explained that this process was not only more environmentally friendly but was also helpful with time. It takes around 14 mins for LGP to make a single plate which is a fraction of the time it used to take. The old way to make a plate was done in a dark room with chemicals which was not healthy for the person making the plates and also to the environmentally friendly.

Laura asked him if he used vegetable based inks because he seemed to care about the environment and wanted to be as sustainable as he could be. He said that they did use vegetable based inks which was a really positive thing to hear from a place which would be considered as not environmentally friendly. We asked him if he had any clients which wanted to use vegetable based inks and he said that he does have some which ask for it though they are usually large corporations, smaller clients do not generally ask for it because they are more interested in the cost of the printing and wanting to keep it all to a minimum.

Phil then showed us around the rest of the building and the various machinery which they have and the jobs which they did. These can be seen below.

I think that visiting LGP has benefitted me in a way which secondary research cannot. I really enjoyed speaking to someone who is in the industry now and can give honest feedback and comments about print.

Plate

Plate going into the printer

Machine to collate, fold and trim.

Each page is picked up by the machine and is scanned to make sure that one page has been selected, this is then collated with other pages and folded and trimmed to size.

Folding and trimming section of the machine.

Example being shown by Phil

An example of a job which they have recently finished. This has been printed with Litho, folded and trimmed then matte laminated.

Another folding machine. This machine can fold 100 leaflets in under 30 seconds.

This machine is only used for jobs which are not worth a lot of money because the fold makes the design crack slightly. For the brochure about chairs this had been creased which did not make the paper crack.

Phil showed us the matte laminating sheet which was on top of the paper.

Old Die Cutting Machine

Different print jobs which they have done.

Laminating roller. The film is applied by heat which is about 120 degrees.

Litho Print

Litho print is something which I find very hard to understand but attending LGP has helped to explain more about what it is about. We were fortunate to be at LGP whilst a plate was being added to the machine. This was really interesting as it added the colours at different times and they all came out as one image which looked as it was supposed to.

Yellow compartment

CMYK Compartments

Plate going into the machine

The final print.

Once the printer has completed one of the final products it is then taken to a board where it is examined to make sure that the correct colour is being produced.

They check the colours by the colour bars which are printed within the bleed area

A separate Litho Printer was also available to use in the building this only had 2 colours which were black and red.

Phil explaining the rollers and how it works.

The rollers add the water to the plate

Info-graphic to explain the rollers

Different jobs which had been produced using Litho.

Finishes

I was under the impression that finishes such as foiling and flocking were only possible from a screen, visiting LGP I am mistaken. Commercial print use other methods of foiling which is shown below.

examples of work

Foiling machine

Foiling plate

Die Cutting machine for packaging and other intricate designs or simply to add a shape to a design.

Smaller die cutting machines

In order to set the die cutting machine up to cut a specific net for packaging a forme must be made which will then be used in the machine as a template to cut from.