Cayuga Press is a
printing company located on South Main Street in Cortland NY that is a major
influence both on the local community and abroad. Through their recent
partnership with Quartier Print & Marketing, a larger company based out of
Syracuse, they have grown exponentially and are making great improvements to
the overall flow of the printmaking process. Recently, I was given the
opportunity to explore the inner workings of Cayuga Press and get a behind the
scenes look at exactly how they work with their customers and provide them
with, what I believe to be, a smooth experience from conceptualization to the
final print. Our tour guide took us from beginning to end giving us a good
overview of the whole process and the technology they use to get the job done.
We first took a look at
the central communication device that Cayuga Press uses in conjunction with
artists and design firms throughout the country. Insite, an online proofing
system, uses the convenience of the internet and the power of modern day graphics
engines, to provide the users with an enriching experience that provides
valuable input and output for both the customers and those doing the printing.
Using this software, Cayuga Press is able to receive print jobs rapidly, make
recommendations for the final print, and stay in touch with their patrons
through an automated emailing protocol. When adjustments are made or comments
are posted, emails are sent to the artist, the company, and the reviewers of
the artwork depending on the roles that are created and set up. The power of
Insite is vastly apparent when these communication features are combined with
its incredible ability to provide high resolution images. The zooming
capabilities of the software is on par with that of any of the Adobe programs
allowing users to see even the finest of the fine details. Even more
astounding, artists are now flexible to work when and where they please as the
internet gives them the ability to remain in contact with employers and
business associates from half a world away. Looking to enjoy the beach but are
unable to find time away from work to be able to do so? No problem, simply
bring a tablet notebook with you wherever you go and you can make digital art
on the fly, post it up to Insite, and remain in the loop no matter where you
are. Feet in the sand, hands on a tablet, and the sound of crashing waves in
the distance; it sounds too good to be true but this is an achievable reality
thanks to modern technology!
Back on the floor of
the Cayuga Press warehouse, we stepped outside of this virtual environment and
into the physical reality of the printing world; the printers and the staff
that make the magic happen. Here there was a strong aroma of heavy inks and the
sound of industrial machinery. Everywhere people were hard at work processing
the prints that were spitting out of their machines at an amazing one thousand
pages a minute! Doing the math, that’s an extraordinary sixty thousand pages an
hour, and a whooping four-hundred and eighty thousand pages in an eight hour
work shift! Not to mention, Cayuga Press operates two of these shifts in a
single day and has two main printing stations providing approximately quadruple
that number in one daily cycle. That is a lot of paper!
All print jobs are done
using a CMYK color based system, that is, all the colors formed during the
printing process are created using a combination of the colors, cyan, magenta,
yellow, and key (which is black). This is a subtractive color model where
certain wavelengths of light are absorbed (subtracted) by the pigment and the
rest are reflected back to the eye. Paints, dyes, and inks all use this method
of the color model. Cayuga Press does have the ability of mixing up spot colors
and can provide up to three of them in a single printout. A spot color is an
ink that is mixed together and added to the machine to retain the purity of its
color. Many companies will use spot colors if their designs use a heavy amount
of a single color or are looking to compensate for the loss of certain fainter
tints that CMYK alone fails to create effectively. One of their machines is
able to print using seven colors (CMYK and three spot colors) while the other
can only do five (CMYK and one spot color). The spot colors are not necessary
but are recommended when doing fine printouts.
Once the paper is off
the press, it needs to be cut down to size, trimmed, assembled, shrink-wrapped,
and packaged. Using a large industrial blade, the printed pages are lined up in
stacks of well over five hundred or so sheets and cut to various shapes and
sizes. The blade is capable of cutting through these stacks like butter and,
while it does not provide the smoothest of cuts, it is accurate and can do many
of them at a time. From here, the pages are folded, if necessary, so they can
easily be aligned and inserted into a booklet or magazine and bound together. After
this, they are placed together in stacks throughout the warehouse until needed
for the final trim, binding, and packaging process. Here, leaflets are dropped
down onto a conveyer belt system that carries them away and are trimmed to
exact specification then bound together to create a finished product. Men and
women oversee this operation carefully as it is imperative for the trim to come
out exactly as the patrons have requested. Cutting off even a fraction of a
document can ruin the projects visual appeal. Once bounded, they are
shrink-wrapped through another machine and stacked up into boxes that are
sealed and ready to be shipped.
Much to my surprise,
the Cayuga Press tour was a very inspiring experience. I had no clue that such
a well established printing business was set up so close to home. As can be
seen with the printing they have done on SUNY Cortland’s most recent issue of
SPEAK magazine, they offer a very professional atmosphere for both their
employees and the customers they work with. They are determined to satisfy
their customers and ensure that what they want is indeed what they will
receive. By staying in touch with their patrons through Incite and having multiple
people review the documents before allowing them to be printed, they are able
to effectively and efficiently carry out their task.
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