press check

i got invited along by mr. d on my first press check.  i had no idea what this meant initially.  i was just happy to be invited along to a meeting...another level of learning the design business.  for anyone who may not know (like me); a press check, as i now understand it, is performed by designers at the actual press (in this case we met w/ jimmy seiford at signature media during a live print job.  jimmy was fantastic.  he took the time to give me, the summer intern, a tour of the whole facility - explaining each piece of equipment and its process along the way.  what a wealth of knowledge he was/is.  he told me he had been in the print business since 1967.  did i say he was fantastic?

anyway, our primary purpose for performing a press check was to grant the printer our approval to run the full print job (tens of thousands of copies of a 12-page brochure).  the way mr. d explained it to me was we were there to verify the quality of the print job in process.  we checked our original images against the printed ones looking for any discrepancies in color.  we were also there to look for any flaws that may appear in the paper.  jimmy held our hand as we took loupe in hand and reviewed selected sheets.  there were very few small adjustments that were to be made.  mr. d his approval whole-heartedly trusting jimmy's team to deliver a  flawless end product.

on the drive back to the office we discussed different aspects of print preparation and of the process of ordering and we both agreed how critical it was to seek stellar people who can support and execute your vision successfully.  it was a good trip.  i am looking forward to tomorrow's adventure.  i'll keep you posted.  until then...keep creating.