10 Jan 2017 — Our first (testing) book ! :-) :-)

The first series of books printed at Print Club Torino (10 January, 2017)

From Nuphap Aunyanuphap to Silviã Lãnfrãnchi

Ciao Silvia!!

Greetings from the a (slow) cold train back from Torino

I wanted to document somethings about my previous trip to Torino to meet the people at the print club to ask for suggestions regarding the printing, binding, and packaging. Also, most importantly, to produce and bind our first book.

So…..here we go!! ;-)

ps. This post was published later than the date indicated because some contents have to be edited

Struggling with (time consuming) printing file preparation..and finally…a solution!!

As I mention in the last post that making and preparing the files for print is taking alot of time (last time up to one full day).

After searching through several internet sites, I finally found a solution

1. Select File>Print Booklet
2. Select Print Settings and use printer as a Postscript file
3. In the PPD section, select some printer that you already have installed (this is a part where it allows you to format the page as A4/A3/etc.)
4. Then now you can do the setup and things to export the file to PDF

Then…done!! :-)

While waiting for Print Club to reopen after new year

Since Print Club Torino re-opens again on the 10th of January, there is not much we can do regarding the printing and binding. So around few days after new year time I think it might be great if we could try to print something as a mockup (to understand the font, size, format, thickness, etc.). We can then use this mockup to talk (and ask suggestions) to print club once we get a chance to meet them.

After file preparation during and after new year, on the 9th of January I then took the modified print file and look through some print shops we’ve listed in the time when we first started our thesis (before we decide to use Print Club Torino as our producer).

The criteria I choose is it has to be close to where I live because it has to be quick and tight.

The first place I went is Nonsolostampa around Lima. But sometimes…fate turns down on you:

Luckily, Loreto Print is open and I got a chance to try to print our tests.

Loreto Print do offers alot of paper options, and they have most of them available. The printing process (for laser print on A4/A3 paper) is almost instant. Here are the results:

Test 0.2a — the A5 single-book

Format — 116 pages interior is still a bit too thick to be a single book.

Paper — I choose DYLUM Cyclus offset 100g/m2 as the paper because it’s easy for the eye and are not too thick.

Cover — To be printed at Print Club Torino

Test 0.2b — the A6 multi-book

Cutting and preparing the A6 Multi-book

Format — Multi-book are nice, also because we are self-publishing the book, it’s easier for us to manage the binding.

Paper — This one I choose normal white 80g/m2 to print the book because it’s clean and also to see how it came out as a whole book.

Cover — To be printed at Print Club Torino

Notes — Here I would also like to document some printing errors made by Loreto Print. This thing we (me and the print shop) still don’t know why it happened because the file are totally okay.

Printing error found after the digital printing process at Loreto Print

This is something we have to cross check again when we do our final printing.

When I went there, I also tried to test print our previous version — the A6 single book — that we understand quickly during the design process that it will be too thick (and led us to change the design). However, it’s not a bad idea to try to print and see. And as a result, it is of course too thick for A6 book format:

It would be too hard to bind this book with this thickness, or needed some sort of special technique. Anyway, I also brought this to the print club to ask them for suggestions (if any)

However, this process here led us to understand that doing black and white print here in Loreto Print is super super cheap. The cost of printing 180 pages of A6 book (45 two sided A4) is just around 4 euros.

And then….on to the Print Club (on the 10th of January)

Francesca giving advice on binding and packaging technique of the book.

After arriving at the print club, me and Francesca (a designer working at print club) have a talk about printing and binding techniques of the two versions (A5 single-book and A6 multi-book).

Here are some of the wrap-ups of things Francesca suggested:

• We can only do punto metallico for A5 book, because it’s too thick
• For A6 — it’s possible to do punto metallico and folio singer.
• There are suggestions on the packaging of A6 books (will be explained below)
• Better to do the final production in riso and the mockup in digital prints, because riso is intended for alot of copies, and it would waste alot of matrice and money to print only for mockups,

Printing the Covers

Preparing the papers to be printed (and some for experiments and sample)

The papers I choose to print the covers are:

• A6 multi-book — Favini Crush Uva 120 g/m2 (far left)
• A5 single book — Favini Shiro Tree Pistachio 250 gm/m2 (second from the left)
• Packaging experiment for A6 multi-book — Favini Remake Sky 380 g/m2 (this I explain better below in the packaging experiment section) (second from the right)
• Interior Paper (for a sample) — Favini Shiro Alga 90m/m2 (far right)

Here, as suggested by the print club, I print them only with digital prints.

Printing by digital printer available at the print club.

Manually cutting the covers (that were just printed on Favini Crush Uva 120 g/m2)

Preparation finished and ready for the binding process

Binding the book (A5 single-book)

Getting the book ready to be stabled on the big punto metallico machine. Here, you must tighten the book together or else it will fall apart (because the stapling machine is very very strong)

A5 single book with punto metallico binding technique

The only possible binding technique for it is punto metallico because the book is too thick to use with folio singer. Also, we also have to operate a big machine to punch a hole (because the book is thick)

Binding the book (A6 multi-book)

For this version, we can bind each book with small Punto Metallico machine.

A small stapler used for stapling not-so-thick books. Here also, some self design blocks to have the punctured points always at the same location for every books.

Since the book is thinner, we can also do folio singer.

Doing a folio singer manually.

After binding with folio singer, the books comes out together like this. We have to cut them manually by hand one-by-one.

Some of the available strings for the folio singer technique

As a result, the whole A6 books looks awesome!

However, the problem now lies on how to package and/or put them (the A6 multi-book) together.

Packaging suggestion from Print Club

Print club gave us some suggestions to bind/package our A6 multi-book.

It’s quite hard to explain by words, so better I took of the photo of the mockup I made after I got back instead.

Here, the A6-multi book will be binded to the spine of the cover by elastic band. The thickness of the cover (380 g/m2) will allow the cover to resist the force of elastic band.

I think that it is a nice way to bind our A6 small books together. Let’s see how we can take this further into our developments. ;-)

That’s it for now! See you again soon! :-)

N.