University of Hertingham administration department

To Mrs. A. Garner, Head Of Administration From: Matthew Hennessy Date: Thursday 23rd February 23, 2012 I have been instructed to research three printed products for this event. Invitations for award winners and VIPs, posters and programmes for all the guests. Posters the posters should be designed by an art degree student to and reflect the creative nature of the award winners work. 35 posters would be enough to advertise around the university site. Invitations these should be high quality and have a high quality feel to them, as this is an important prestigious event, there is 25 VIP guests and 40 Award winners. The programmes that would be sold can be printed on A5 pieces of high quality paper, the printed at large numbers, 350 should be enough to cover the majority of the guest. I have thoroughly investigated 5 different ways of printing, of which 4 of these might be suitable, I strongly recommend the four methods I have listed below; The first printing technique I have investigated is Intaglio. The process of this printing technique is to have a metal plate as in this printing the ink settles in the sunken areas of the metal plate and then the smoothed surface of the plate is wiped clean. The plate, in contact with damp paper is then passed through a roller press that has to have a lot of pressure on to it. The paper is then forced into the sunken areas to receive the ink. This process of using this method is very time consuming and needs a highly skilled printmaker to create it. Also to make the product, it is very expensive to create, this means that this method is not suitable for the requirements they wish to have as it is more suitable for a home as it is very high quality work. Secondly, the process of letterpress is to use an image or text to place through rollers, which will press the paper against a plate. Each letter is set in a block by hand so it does require perfection. However this type of printing process is expensive but I do believe that it is a good technique for the invitations, as the writing will be printed out as accurate as possible.

Thirdly, the technique linocut or woodcut and letterpress printer is the engraving and shaping of the finished product. Once you have engraved and shaped the outline of the image or the text or what else is needed. The colour ink is then placed around the outline of it, which will make the centre stand out with different colours. After this it is then placed through a letterpress printer, so the ink sinks into the grooves. I believe that this method will be good for the poster, as there are two types of mechanical printing techniques that are being used. There does need to be skilled work being used, this means that it will be quite expensive. Personally I do believe that it is worth the extra expense as it would be a good idea to keep the less expensive methods for the other products. Lastly, Offset litho or digital printing is a technique of printing that could be used as it is suitable for a large amount of copies as it works at such a fast rate. Within the method it produces mostly writing. There are some differences between digital and offset litho printing. Firstly, digital printing involves not much setting up and then a cost for each copy. However, offset litho involves more setting up and a printable plate to create the first copy, but the cost per copy is a lot cheaper. A guide to the expense would be that if digital was wanted then it would be cheaper to print up to 500 items, however, if you wish to print using offset litho method then it would be best to print over 500 items. Digital printing can take up to 2-3 working days, whereas, offset litho can take up to 5 working days. Overall, I personally believe that the digital printing is the most suitable method to use as it would be suitable for the programmes as it will be less costly and there are 300 copies which need to be printed, therefore, using digital printing will be most suitable as far as time consuming. To conclude for the programme i have decided to use offset litho because It is cheap and has a fast pace when printing. The cost for printing would be just 5p with 300 programme it would only cost an average of 15.00 which gives us a good amount of budget to be spent on invitations and posters. For the posters, there are 40 needed, with 25 VIP, with only 485 pound left, I believe using the letter press to make invitations is suitable as of its accuracy and presentation. Lastly when making the poster, the lino cut method is recommended as it is the most arty and well presented.