Field Trip

I think my boss felt a bit sorry for me after a stress packed few days of magaziney doom, which is why after lunch today she asked me if I wanted to go and check out the printery where one of our flagship magazines gets printed. I of course said hell yes, on the basis that the printery was out in Petone and we'd spend most of the afternoon being shown around because I'm deeply fascinated in following what happens after the digital artwork has been sent away, so off I went with the sales team, who were clearly there just to skive off work.

It was actually pretty interesting and I'm glad I went. I've been to a large scale printery once before, but nothing like this place. The warehouse alone could have filled in for the place in Indiana Jones where the Ark gets filed away, it was enormous. Three vast printers in the printing room that you could walk all over, plus huge areas for sorting, packaging, stapling, binding, pre-pressing. I watched aluminum plates being etched and saw books being sewn together. I also got to see my magazine being put through the binding machine and stacked up in huge piles on crates, ready to be shipped out across the country.

While much of the technical print process escaped me, it was cool seeing with more experienced eyes exactly what happens when the design file gets sent away on a large scale magazine production, and definitely motivated me to hone my print layout skills further.

Buuuh. Okay I'd planned to be a bit more insightful with this post but my brain is leaking out of my ears, so I'll settle for a 'this is what I did' writeup instead. Night!