SVC Wayzgoose: way fun!

A wayzgoose is an old-timey party traditionally held by printers for their apprentices at the end of August.

The eighth annual Wayzgoose and Steamroller Smackdown at Seattle’s School of Visual Concepts was not your run-of the-mill picnic. SVC had invited teams of local designers to carve large posters into battleship linoleum, ink them, then print them by running over them with a real steamroller!

Twelve teams accepted the challenge, including printer-designers from Fitch, Starbucks, Turnstyle, Methodologie, and Evolution Press. At the end of the day, the steamroller posters were auctioned off with proceeds going to support SVC’s letterpress programs.

The festivities also included tours of SVC’s letterpress studio and a tempting Letterpress Marketplace of printed broadsides, cards, and ephemera designed and printed by SVC students, local letterpress printers, and book artists.

As the afternoon passed, the clouds burned away. Hotdogs sizzled on the grill as bluegrass fiddlers serenaded the crowd. And big posters festooned the railings of the School of Visual Concepts, drying in the late-summer breeze.

What a fun day and fundraiser for a worthy cause!

Avoiding postage disasters

A non-profit organization planned to design and send about 1,000 event invitations. To put it mildly, pre-planning was not their strong suit, so by the time they got their invites printed and addressed, they had to mail them First Class.

Oops, there went $300 down the drain! Granted, that’s not an earth-shattering expense, but for budget-strapped organizations, any cost savings are welcome.

Print planning at the arm-waving stage

I like to get in the loop with a print project while it’s still at the arm-waving stage. That’s the time when designers are just beginning to dream up design solutions, but haven’t done too much designing. Sometimes the entire design team gets together at this point; other times it’s just me and the lead designer. It’s a great time to include the electronic production artist, too. Don’t forget to bring the creative brief!

Before design comes arm waving

At an arm-waving stage meeting, designers ask me questions like, “Have you ever seen….” or “Is it possible to print silver ink on top of 4-color images?” or “Can you find me some printed samples of black and metallic copper Duotones?” or  ”How many pages does a book need to have in order to be perfect-bound?”

I review the creative brief and ask questions to help me understand the designer’s creative intent, too. With this understanding, I can often suggest techniques and structures and start thinking about workarounds for must-have design features that may pose manufacturing challenges.

What does a print production manager do?

If you haven’t worked at a large graphic design studio or advertising agency, you might not be familiar with print production managers or know just what it is that we do.

Most print production managers (also called print managers, production managers, producers, or print specialists) work as part of a team that includes account executives, project managers, art directors, designers, and electronic production artists.

Although we often report to a production director or operations manager, many print production managers are also artists and craftsmen/women with a strong affinity for visual design and designers.

Like me, many print production managers are independent consultants who work with smaller design studios and agencies by project.

How to decide: 4-color vs. spot color printing

How do you determine whether 4-color process printing will work for your design or project? Here are some tips to help you decide:

Considering 4-color process, also known as CMYK

C, M, Y & K dots form rosettes in standard screening *

In 4-color process printing, all colors are printed in dots, in the 4 process-color inks. The 4 process colors are cyan (C), yellow (Y), magenta (M) and black (K).  (Why K? Because if it was B, some people might think B stood for blue?)

In traditional offset printing, those dots of color form rosettes, like the ones here. Each color of dots is printed at a different screen angle.

The easiest way to understand 4-color process is by looking at the cartoons in the Sunday paper. The dot pattern is printed so coarsely on the newsprint that you can see all the dots.