Learning Print Production (2012)

- Hi, I'm Claudia McCue. Welcome to Print Production Fundamentals. The world of printing is a fascinating but complex one, and its requirements can be full of surprises for a designer who just wants to submit a job. And in printing, surprise is usually not a good thing. In this course, I'll walk you through this world so that you can deal with it sanely and with successful results. You'll see how jobs flow through the printing plant. You'll understand how to meet different needs depending on the type of job. And you'll see what happens for the files that you submit.

We'll talk about the different types of printing, including letterpress, sheet-fed, web press, and some others. I'm gonna show you how to think about print as you're designing, and how to create files that will come out the other end without surprises. I'll be talking about process color versus spot color, how ink behaves on paper, and the mechanics of printing, including why it's important to build to the correct size, to anticipate the requirements of folding and trimming, and setting up for die cutting. And also preparing for other specialty finishing processes, such as embossing and foil stamping.

I want to show you how to find problems before they become catastrophes. And finally, we'll take a look at InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat as they relate to building healthy files for print. I'm excited to share my knowledge with you. After all these years, I still love printing and I hope you'll see why by the end of Print Production Fundamentals.