The Penn Stater Magazine

We’re on Press

April 20, 2009 at 7:27 pm Tina Hay 3 comments

Greetings from Strasburg, Va., where the May-June issue of The Penn Stater is being printed as we speak. Someone from the magazine staff isn’t usually present for this event, but once in a while it’s good to show up (in the biz, it’s referred to as going on a “press check”) just to let the printer know you care. Some art directors press-check the magazine every single time, hanging out in the color booth with the pressmen and suggesting they add a little more yellow ink here or blue ink there, but the technology is so sophisticated and automated today that it’s probably not necessary.

This afternoon I watched as part of the magazine (32 pages’ worth) whipped through the press at high speed, and I toured the rest of the facility—everything from the warehouse where they store hundreds of gigantic rolls of paper, to the stitchery, where the magazines get stapled (though “stapled” doesn’t do justice to how complex the operation is), to the on-site U.S. Postal Service operation. Right now I’m enjoying dinner at the ultra-quaint Hotel Strasburg, where over the course of the day the waitress and the woman at the front desk have variously called me “honey,” “sweetheart,” and “baby,” and then around 9:00 p.m. I’ll head back over to see the cover on press.

Here are a couple of miscellaneous shots of the printing operation. Click on any of them to see it bigger—and, in some cases, get a sneak preview of the next issue.

There is a proof for each page of the magazine, and we approved the proofs a week or so ago. Now they're hanging in the booth so the pressmen can bring in finished pages and compare the color on those to the proofs.

Mary, our customer service rep, checks the opening spread of one of our features against the proofs. The red marks on the proofs are my approval ("OK TMH") from a week or so ago.

The magazine pages zoom by so fast on press that they just look like a blur.

Stacks of finished sections of the magazine (called "signatures"). The page you can see is from Class Notes.

Later, once all the sections are printed, they go off to be "stitched," or stapled, into completed magazines. The staples actually originate as these giant spools of wire.

Each client who's there for a press check gets a lounge to hang out in while waiting for various signatures (also called forms) to go on press.

If you go out on the pressroom floor unescorted, you have to wear these sexy safety shoes. Either that, or steel-toed shoes if you've got 'em. (I'm serious!)

OK, Mary just called to say the cover is ready to go on press—two hours early. The press schedule changes constantly. Time to pay my dinner bill and hop in the car to drive back over to the plant.

Tina Hay, editor

Entry filed under: The Penn Stater magazine. Tags: magazine printing, press check, printing process, RR Donnelley, Strasburg.