This week’s Youth Design Professional Development Workshop started with an early morning bus ride to Wilmington where Kirkwood Printing is located. Wide awake by David’s great icebreaker- pairing students who still don’t know each other very well, the bust ride was great fun and we got to Kirkwood eager to find out the logistics behind printing high quality work. We ate breakfast and were introduced to Robert Brown. He then began to explain to us the 4-color process (CYMK) when printing digital files. We learned that plates are layered with the individual colors; Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and Black. He passed around examples of plates for us to look at closely, he also explained that they are printed in small dots- a full black or colored page would be called a 100%, and the less dots in the area the less percentage. After the students gained full understanding of the 4-color printing process we split up into groups to begin our tour through the Kirkwood printing facility. It was really eye opening to see the size of the printers and the speed in which they print. There was also machinery that took care of stapling, folding, and color correction. The process for clients to print out their work in abundance was once timely, but with the technology and the state-of-the-art printing equipment they have at Kirkwood it is now shorter. Kirkwood does have great spaces for clients to relax in while waiting for their work to be printed. Students asked questions while trying to understand processes of certain printing jobs regarding cost, color and the amount of copies. It was really important for the students to be exposed to the printing process at a high-end company like Kirkwood because they have emphasis on quality printing. Being the designers that we are, it is imperative that we have at least some understanding on printing different jobs, whether it may be a mailing document or a brochure.
We also learned that it was Kirkwood who printed Denise’s new book, 10 Who Mentor, as well as the Time To Design Competition note cards in 2010, and that Kirkwood is a great supporter of Youth Design over the years.
Thanks to Kirkwood Printing