The Best Printing of the Year

When Jimmy Friend stepped onto the stage at last month's IPMA conference to accept the In-Print 2012 Best of Show award in the non-offset categories, he was on familiar ground. It was the third consecutive Best of Show award for University of North Texas Printing & Distribution Solutions, an achievement no other in-plant has attained.

"I just can't tell you how excited we are about this," he told IPG after accepting his award. "This is absolutely awesome."

Equally enthused was Dave Hoel, manager of Printing Services at the University of Minnesota, which claimed its first Best of Show victory this year in the offset categories.

"This is pretty exciting," he remarked after the ceremony in Kansas City. "I'm proud for all the people back in Minnesota. A lot of effort goes into this. The guys take a lot of pride in this piece." (Watch a video interview of both managers just minutes after accepting their awards.)

That piece is a colorful calendar, entitled "Minnesota Gardening," which features exquisite photographs of flowers and scenery from all over the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

UNT's award winning piece was a spiral-bound, 7x8.5˝ program for the South Asia Peace Conference, held at UNT. The in-plant printed it on its HP Indigo 5500. UNT also had something else to brag about: the Denton, Texas, in-plant won more total awards (10) than any other in-plant this year.

This was a huge accomplishment for an in-plant that, just a few years ago, was struggling to retain customers. When Friend started as director in 1995, the in-plant was in bad shape, with a reputation for poor quality and bad service. In the years that followed, he worked hard to change employee attitudes, improve processes and regain customer trust.

A humble man, Friend is quick to credit his staff for the turnaround and the subsequent run of awards. Their loyalty to UNT and dedication to the quality of their work, he insists, are what have earned the in-plant its substantial collection of In-Print awards—54 since 2004.

Friend also heaps praise on the other in-plants that have inspired him and his staff to try harder, such as University of Oklahoma Printing Services, which has its own long history of winning In-Print awards. Years ago, Friend talked with OU Administrator John Sarantakos to find out how his in-plant was able to win so many awards. Using these tips, Friend and his staff have chased OU for years in the In-Print contest, striving to do as well. This year, for the first time, UNT surpassed OU in the total number of awards, something that leaves Friend both proud and grateful.

A Very Close Contest

OU, a past Best of Show winner, came extremely close to winning the grand prize in the offset categories this year with a superb quality catalog of Walt Disney animation. It was edged out by the University of Minnesota's calendar. (Watch our video to see just how close it was.) That calendar was printed on a six-color, 28x40˝ Heidelberg and finished with double-loop wire binding. The judges were very impressed with how sharp the printing looked and how well all of the elements lined up on the pages.

Hoel says the 44-employee in-plant has been entering the contest for more than 10 years and has reaped 20 awards so far. But winning Best of Show is definitely the shop's proudest moment.

"Everyone was pretty excited about it," he says. "I made it a point to walk around to everyone in the entire shop and tell them about it."

The calendar was printed for the University of Minnesota Extension, and sold at retail locations around the state.

"It is one of the more high profile pieces that we do," Hoel says.

Mark Peterson was the job planner and Don Breneman was the project manager and also took many of the photos. John Molstad designed the piece. Prepress was handled by Randy Lindorfer, who oversaw color corrections and made plates on the Fuji Javelin platesetter.

"What makes this project flow so smooth is all the organization of the project at the beginning of the process," says Hoel. "Our account rep [Joe Sobota] and prepress operator meet with the designer and the project manager to go over all the details and expectations."

The job was printed (four colors plus an aqueous coating) on the Heidelberg over two shifts by operators Tim Chamberlain, Joe Erickson, Glenn Adams and Jim Nielsen. They did frequent checks for registration and color consistency. After printing, double loop spiral binding was done on a GBC STL1000 twin loop binding machine by Nancy Huspek, Dave Rosendahl, Jesse Lyman, Bob Schlossmacher and Don Meysembourg.

From Elimination to Championship

UNT's Best of Show was an award that almost wasn't, as shown in IPG's video of the judging. The piece was initially eliminated from contention when judges felt it couldn't compete against two other pieces, from Brigham Young University and Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators, both with numerous glossy photos. But after ruminating for a while, the judges realized the UNT piece was more technically difficult to produce than the others, despite their luster. So they decided to pull it out of the discard pile and give it another look. In the end, they unanimously picked the UNT program.

Printed on uncoated stock, without a single photo, its elegance shines through nonetheless. Designed by Dani Nicholson, it features pockets on the inside front and back covers and a green border on every page that never changes shades. A graphic crosses every spread, lining up even after the spiral coil had been inserted through it.

One of the toughest parts of the job, Friend says, was ensuring color consistency on each of the program's 48 pages. One reason this was so difficult was because the cream colored background on every page was printed using the HP Indigo 5500.

"We couldn't get a cream colored stock," he explains—and that was what the customer wanted. Amy Layton handled prepress, and she spent countless hours making adjustments, fixing spacing and margins, creating templates preflighting, proofing and preparing the job for printing.

Sunny Aringada printed the job on the HP Indigo 5500. It was then trimmed by Jeff Sansom on the in-plant's Perfecta 132 TVC cutter.

"Jeff and our entire bindery staff are very skilled in trimming of these type projects," lauds Friend. "They know the importance of detail. All three of the Best of Show winners, I have to give lots of kudos to my bindery staff for their excellence and skill level."

Coil binding was done using Rhin-o-tuff equipment in the in-plant's Eagle Images copy and retail center, overseen by Roy Nance.

Friend is thrilled that his in-plant won Best of Show yet again. But as usual, he takes none of the credit.

"We've got a great staff," he praises. "They just do a wonderful job, each and every day. I'm a blessed man."