Transition Times:This week Louise Holdenlooks at choosing a printer
As the SchoolMag competition grows and grows, some printing companies are waiting in dread for the call. Imagine the scene: half a dozen stressed out students come into your print shop with a disk, a couple of hundred euro and deadline of next week. They have no idea what finish they're going for, whether they want (or can afford) colour, how many copies they need or what sort of paper they want to use. The printer opens the disk to find that the magazine's layout makes it impossible to print or worse, the disk contains a virus-ridden pdf sourced from a free online software package and it won't open at all.
Declan Grace of the Print Bureau in Dublin gets dozens of calls from students looking to print their schoolmag and has some useful advice for this year's competitors. The most important point, he says, is to start early and talk to printers now.
"The first problem that students may encounter is a printer who's just not interested in dealing with students, because of the problems caused by their inexperience. It's very tough for a group of students to spend six months labouring over a magazine and then find that the local print shop is unwilling to get involved because the layout makes the printing process too difficult. The answer is not to send e-mails out to 25 printers asking for quotes - you won't get an answer back from many taking that approach."
Declan suggests that students talk to two or three printers now - before they start getting into layout and design in a serious way. "Get a good idea of what it is you're looking for and then go and chat to a few printers long before you actually need their services to see who you can work with and to get some advice," says Grace.
"Don't just ask for a price - tell him or her your budget and ask for advice. Remember, unless he thinks you're serious, he won't deal with you. Make an appointment to call in - don't e-mail looking for a quote." Consider the number of pages, the size of the magazine, the finish you want (ie glossy or matt), whether you want full colour, one or two colours or black and white, and how many magazines you want to print. Most importantly, have an idea of your budget, because that will determine what the printer will advise for you.
When you have found a sympathetic printer that you can work with, keep him or her involved. When you start the design process give him or her some sample pages to ensure they will print. Just because it prints on a small desk-top ink-jet printer, does not mean it is suitable for commercial printing.
Terms such as bleeds, crops and backgrounds may mean little to you now but they will make all the difference when it comes to printing your magazine.
If you have done a test run on your design and discovered some of the glitches you will be able to move forward in the design process with these professional considerations in mind. It may mean scaling back your production ambitions but a simple, well-printed, on-budget product is far preferable to a glossy, full colour, razzmatazz notion that will cost you a fortune an perhaps never make it to the printing stage at all.
Next week: music journalism
