Trip to the printers

On my last day at Croudace the Graphic Designer was kind enough to arrange a trip with the print management company we used to both their print management office and design studio and then on to a printers.

The owner shows us how the plates are made for litho printing
The metal sheets are fed through this machine to imprint the design

One sheet is used for each colour of CMYK
The plates are then loaded into the printing machine..
Each section of the printer is for a different part of CMYK
The reverse of the plate is printed onto a roller and then onto the paper
Paper is cut to size
And loaded into the machine
Pots of ink
Machine to check accuracy of colours when printed
All pantone colours are made using these inks
And measured using these pantone scales
Machine cutting paper to size

There were stacks of paper and ink everywhere. The machines were so loud it was hard to think straight! There were also machines for folding booklets, creating multipage booklets with staples and digital printers. Amazing to see a real life printing press and helps to understand how to design for print when you see how the process works in real life!