To: Mrs A Garner, Head of Administration

From: Nathan Sebanakitta

Date: 23/2/12

Report into printed materials for ‘Top note’ award ceremony

I was asked to research 3 products that were printed for this predicament: posters, invites for people that won awards and VIP’s, and programme sheets for every guest.

Requirements

Posters- should have been designed by an art student and mirror the innovative nature of the award winners’ effort. 30 posters would be adequate for the university site.

Invitations – should contain a high quality feel to them, as this is most prominent award the department gives annually. There will 40 award winners and VIP guests expected.

The Programme will be in a running order and can be mass printed on A5 manuscript. 300 should suffice; it will be enough to cover the large number guests expected.

Print Technology and Costs

I have investigated five contrasting print technologies, of which four might be suitable. I can recommend the following as best for each task.

Intaglio

In the various intaglio printing methods, the area of the image to be printed is recessed into the surface of the printing plate and the recessed areas are filled with ink. The incised image may be etched, engraved with chemicals or tools. The image to be printed is incised into the plates, the incisions filled with ink, and excess ink wiped from the plates. The printmaker must be very skilled. This is a very slow process and requires patience. This is suitable for invitations. This would be an expensive method of producing invitations because it takes a lot time and the machines used to make them are expensive.

Letterpress

In the letterpress method, the letterpress printers press the paper through rollers. The rollers press the paper against a plate against letters, set in a block.

They would be best for invitations, as it has 3D quality that makes the product look well presented. It can be produced quickly also. It would require hiring someone who has the knowledge and experience on how to use a letterpress and owns one of their own. It would be quite expensive, but I would recommend using this method because the final product would be very good.

Digital printing & Offset Litho

Digital printing is cheaper, and it is also very good for small numbers of copies. It is very quick and you are easily able to change spelling mistakes, also, it is good for the ‘I want it now’ customer.
Offset printing is very good quality and they can print up to 18,000 sheets per hour. When offset printing, the ink soaks on the paper and the colour doesn’t run, and it will allow for a better looking product, whereas the simple digital printing method, may look cheap, but would be easy and quick to produce.

Summary

Poster- offset litho printing should be used, it would cost in the region of £50
Programme – digital printing would be suitable, and it would cost £15
Invitations- letterpress should be used, and it would cost approximately £400