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Comments (6)
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I came down with Sandra Garcia, Budget Travel's Art Director, and Ton Vu, our Production Director, to observe and direct the printing of our November issue. I watched Budget Travel pages get slight ink adjustments so the colors on the pages pop, roll through the press, get trimmed, and ultimately bind together with a complicated process I wouldn't dare to describe. Bottom line: it's awesome.
Here are the 4 Most Fascinating Things I Learned Today:
1) A train (literally a train!) comes in to drop rolls of paper bigger than I am. Each is stacked and labeled with the name of the magazine it belongs to. Budget Travel's paper is milled in Finland.
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3) It's old-school and technologically advanced, all at once. Computers somehow track each magazine as it rolls through press, so they can sort them by zip code. All issues of Budget Travel going out to Oregon, for instance, get stacked and shipped off in one handy stack, making the mailman's job just a bit easier.
4) Robots are involved. I'm not kidding.
5) So Finland + Memphis + Mexico…the making of Budget Travel is itself an impressive journey.
EARLIER
What are your family travel lifesavers? (15 comments)
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Be sure to tell the printers that they are doing a good job.
Posted By Tom B. on September 25, 2009, 2:30 PM
Great post, really! It's terrific to see press about printing presses - especially on a blog. I plan to retweet this early & often.
Isn't the process Amazing? And yet, no one except those of us in/of the industry knows anything about the magnificent printing industry. Your post has helped promote a magical yet 'invisible' industry.
Thanks for writing this. Please keep it up.
Posted By Margie Dana on September 25, 2009, 9:13 PM
It really is interesting what goes on backstage.
"All of the little extra bits of paper that get shaved off when pages are trimmed end up getting sold to Mexico."
I wonder what that is for. Why don't we just recycle the paper and reuse it ourselves?
Posted By Shaun on September 25, 2009, 9:37 PM
That's amazing they have a train come in and dump paper. Wow, that's a big facility!
Posted By travel agent atlanta on September 26, 2009, 2:21 AM
Im hoping that Budget Travel is being printed on recycled paper. It would be a shame that given the travel industry trying to go green that the magazine should follow suit. Id like to see an article about that!
Posted By mitch on September 28, 2009, 1:29 AM
This is a really neat plant. I have sold them electric motors, controls and pumps for their plant. I had no idea that Budget Travel was printed there. I have subscribed to Budget Travel since its beginning and love it. I bought the very first issue off of a newsstand while traveling on business and the next issue was a subscription from there on. Great Work, Budget Travel!!!!
Posted By Vickie on September 28, 2009, 5:07 PM