WHO HAS GOT THE BUTTON?

In addition to printing brochures, reports, and advertising materials for use across the University, UVAPrint also produces a number of other types of marketing media. In high demand are stickers and buttons. Our wide format printing department uses a computer-driven cutting machine which allows us to cut out sheets of custom-outlined stickers quickly and efficiently. The Office of Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights has often called on us to produce the popular colorful pronoun stickers and buttons every year to help students and staff easily communicate their gender pronoun preference. This year, on the occasion of the Commonwealth of Virginia's first recognition of June 19 as an official holiday, the University administration decided to join the celebration by printing and distributing free Juneteenth Freedom Day buttons. UVAPrint was proud to be a partner in this project producing 1000 uniquely-designed buttons for the event!

CELEBRATING DURING SHUTDOWN

Eizabeth Carey Feola, HR's Rewards and Recognitions Specialist, organizes several events each year to honor UVA employees who have reached mile stones in their service at the University. Unique invitations are sent to all of the honorees to welcome them to a festive dinner and awards ceremony. During the Covid shutdown this type of gathering, like so many others, was no longer feasible. In lieu of the in-person presentation, a special awards package was conceived which could be shipped to each employee. Elizabeth worked closely with UVAPrint who printed these impressive packages and coordinated their delivery. We all hope this was a one-off experience!

OPEN AND READY TO SERVE YOU!

UVAPrint has remained open to serve the University's essential services throughout the shutdown. As we welcome back students and staff for the Fall reopening of the University, we would like to remind you that we can respond immediately to your department's printing needs! We offer full-color offset printing on our eight-unit Heidelberg press, affordable short-run color printing on our digital presses, photo-quality signs and banners on our wide format press, high volume duplicating of forms and support materials, as well as mail preparation and addressing services. Our class bubble testing service is simple and easy to use. You can either drop off the test pages or submit them as a pdf and we take care of the rest. Delivery on Grounds is always free! We look forward to assisting you with whatever your communication needs may be. Call or email print representative Josef Beery for help planning and ordering your next job at 434 964-6886 or jb6y@virginia.edu.

NEW PRESS ON LINE

All units are rolling on our new Heidelberg eight-unit perfecting offset press! “Perfecting” describes this press’s ability to print one side of the sheet and then the other all in one pass. When the sheet comes off the press both sides have been printed and it is ready to be folded and bound. This speeds up production, reduces press usage, and gives UVAPrint the ability to print a full eight standard pages at one time. Printing eight pages at once has traditionally required a much larger press. An additional unit allows addition of aqueous coatings to provide protection and special effects to your printed pieces. Improved ink control systems ensure the highest degree of color accuracy, an important capability working in a brand-centered environment. Production manager John Greenwood, UVAPrint director Kelly Hogg, and sales representative Josef Beery are ready to assist you with your print needs. Their decades of experience printing in the commercial world allows UVA’s in-house printing facility to match the prices and quality of private vendors while allowing us to concentrate our energies on UVA’s special needs with out the distractions of competing customers. Pricing for your job is just an email away!

PRINTING EXTINCT SPECIES

The Carolina Parakeet is honored in the latest poster produced by Special Collections for their new exhibition, "Extinction in the Archive." Curator Holly Robertson peeks through the hole left in the poster to represent the disappearance of this significant species. The Carolina Parakeet was the most northern of the parrots. It once ranged the forests of the eastern United States from the Atlantic to Colorado and as far north as New York. It is believed its twentieth-century disappearance was the result of forest habitat loss as well as extermination by farmers as its feeding flocks could be a threat to crops and interestingly, the flocks tended to remain with wounded and dead members, making them easy prey. Our poster lost its symbolic bird from the Audubon painting of the "Carolina Parrot" with the help of our new piece of equipment, the Colex cutter. This machine allows us to cut intricate silhouettes in a number of different types of printing material. Try it out on your next job!

NEW PRESS INSTALL!

Brian Green, press operator, and John Greenwood, production supervisor, check out the installation of our new eight-unit Heidelberg offset press at UVAPrint. This press will allow us to continue to offer the best quality printing at the lowest prices to all units of the University. This press enhances our ability to print magazines and reports by producing a full-color, two-sided sheet in one pass. For premium marketing projects this press will offer the tightest and most accurate color offset printing in the industry as well as sophisticated gloss, dull, and protective aqueous coatings.

POURING IT ON FOR OUR NEW EIGHT-COLOR PERFECTING PRESS!

Stage two of building the new extra-thick foundation for our fabulous new press. [An eight-unit Heidelberg Speedmaster capable of printing both sides of a sheet in full-color in one pass.] Buckets of concrete are carried into the plant from the cement mixer delivery truck at our loading dock. Each small load is carefully released over the 12" of steel rebar which has been woven into the foundation hole. It is vibrated to settle the cement properly and then carefully finished by hand.

DIGGING IN!

The new press is BIG! [It is an eight-unit Heidelberg Speedmaster capable of printing both sides of a sheet in full-color in one pass.] Big means heavy. Our six-inch foundation is not sufficient to hold equipment this size. After the saws cut a five by fifty foot hole in our existing floor, huge chunks of concrete are lifted out of the way and taken off site. Next the hole is deepened to make room for pouring a new foundation slab. Our contractor makes it all look easy with the right equipment. They move rapidly with surprisingly little mess.

WATCH THIS SPACE!

Out with the old and in with the new. Our venerable Miller two-color press is moving out. This machine has served the University well, printing the thousands of University Finals programs for many years. It was a powerful machine in its day, capable of printing both sides of a sheet simultaneously. (We call a press like this a "perfecting press".) It was built in Germany in 1987 and is now being replaced with bigger and better equipment. The new Heidelberg Speedmaster 8-color press will also be capable of printing on both sides of the sheet, but in full color! This ability will make UVAPrint competitive with any printing company in Virginia! But first, the Miller has to go. And moving it out is no easy task. The press weighs fifteen tons, far too much for the very heavy-duty Hyster forklift to manage. So our equipment riggers first broke the press down into two portions, each just over seven tons. Once the press is off the floor, we will have the room we need to start the new installation. This will not be an easy task, the first step is to gouge a a five-foot by fifty-foot hole in the floor and fill it with several feet of concrete to form a solid, sturdy base. Join us back here over the next several weeks to watch the exciting process of installing the new press! What will happen to the Miller? A press like this still has a lot of life in it, in this case it will be sold overseas where it will help a businesss in a developing country expand.

NEW LIFE FOR A RETIRED PRINTING PRESS

The Virginia Humanities public program known as the Center for the Book recently hosted their first visiting artist to Charlottesville. Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr was invited through the new Frank Riccio visiting artist endowment to come share his work with the Charlottesville community. Kennedy, an internationally known printer (he dislikes being referred to as an "artist"), had recently been featured in an inaugural show at the new Institute for Contemporary Arts in Richmond. His infectious good humor and irrepressible social commentary make Kennedy an effective builder of community, especially in those places suffering the wounds of racial conflict. Kennedy spent several weeks in Charlottesville this March working with hundreds of school children and community members. Their efforts resulted in the creation of over 10,000 posters written, designed, printed, and displayed by the participants. Exhibits of these printed posters have been made throughout public venues at the University and the community (you may still see them on display at the Jefferson Madison Regional Libraries, the UVA Art Department, the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, and UVA Special Collections, as well as at a number of local businesses). The book arts program of the Center for the Book acted as a host for Kennedy. This program got its start over two decades ago when equipment from the University Printing Office was transferred to the Virginia Humanities for community use. A Vandercook proof press and dozens of cases of metal and wood type became the nucleus of a workshop and classroom program which is now a dynamic center for activities of artists and other community members. WHO KNEW what life this obsolete printing equipment still had to offer!

WHAT IS GREENWASHING?

Greenwashing is the attempt by corporations and institutions to persuade people that using paper is harmful to the environment. In fact, paper production and use is a highly sustainable practice. Wood fibers can be grown, sourced and reused in a responsible way. Maximizing the use of recycled fibers and sourcing virgin fiber from credibly certified natural forests and plantations can reduce paper’s ecological footprint. Replacing paper with electronic communication to save the environment is a specious argument because it is now well established that our laptops, phones, and other digital devices place a heavy toll on the environment through energy use and the production of greenhouse gases.

UVAPrint recently joined forces with Two Sides North America, a global initiative by companies from the Graphic Communications Industry to promote the sustainability of this industry and to dispel common  environmental misconceptions by providing users with verifiable information on why print and paper is an attractive, practical and sustainable communications medium.

Look for more information on this exciting program posted soon on this website and at public printing devices around the University.

NEW EQUIPMENT

UVAPrint is excited to be expanding its wide-format printing department with two new pieces of equipment. Signs, banners, and posters will look better than ever! We can print on many different materials including the latest synthetic super-durable products. Additionally, we can now custom cut your product into unique shapes after it is mounted on any of a number of rigid sign materials. Contact us for a demonstration of our new capabilities and to price the job you may be preparing. Contact Josef Beery at 434 924-7186 or jb6y@virginia.edu to learn more!

PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

UVAPrint has begun a series of monthly roundtables to assist our customers stay up-to-date in our rapidly changing world of communication in print and on the web. These informal breakfast presentations provide a painless introduction to topics which can seem intimidating to those of us navigating daily technological changes. Providing information and discussion on everything from digital printing to US Postal mailing requirements and "augmented reality," these roundtables are a valuable resource for preparing effective communication. To attend our next session contact Josef Beery at 924-7186 or jb6y@virginia.edu.

“UVAPrint” UNVEILED

After several months of careful planning, we have recently introduced a new visual identity for Printing and Copying Services. The new UVAPrint logo will be used for marketing purposes and to provide an easily recognizable visual representation of our department. Our new logo is not division specific, but is representative of the entire department and all of our services as we provide print in many different ways. We hope that you will turn to UVAPrint any time you need to image materials on to paper or any of the new synthetic substrates. We offer conventional and digital full-color printing, wide-format printing, and design and mailing services, as well as a complete line of high-end digital imaging equipment for your office. We even recently entered the classroom, offering professors and instructors a testing imaging service. Our new name will not replace, but supplement “UVA Printing and Copying Services.” You may also occasionally hear us referred to as “the University Printing Office,” our original name. [Interestingly the designation “printing office” has been used for printing enterprises since the sixteenth century!]

PROTECTING SCHOOL CHILDREN

Allergy anaphylaxis is a serious medical emergency. Dr. Alice Hoyt from the UVA Hospital and her team developed a rapid response program to be used by the staff of local schools when confronted with an anaphylaxis emergency. This summer Eric Cross in the UVAPrint Design Department worked with Dr. Hoyt to introduce the Code Ana project in Charlottesville area schools. UVAPrint produced advertising rack cards, informational brochures, and promotional stickers. The most exciting part of the job was creating emergency response boxes branded with the Code Ana logo for use in the Charlottesville Schools. UVAPrint is proud to be a part of this important project!

SMITHSONIAN WELCOMES JOSEF BEERY

Josef Beery, sales representative for UVAPrint, explains to Smithsonian visitors the difference between a “printer” and a “printing press.” Young people found his hands-on demonstration press a fun way to become acquainted with the fundamentals of printing. Joan Boudreau, Curator of Graphic Arts at the Smithsonian called Beery’s presentation definitely the “most popular activity” of those hosted for the annual Smithsonian “Print-O-Rama.” Beery considers encouraging an understanding of print and the power of this vital communication tool an essential part of his job at UVAPrint. According to Beery, “The vast majority of us still prefer to read from print and it has been established that comprehension and retention are improved when reading from a physical object. Most important for those of us in the communication business, is the fact that reading from paper is more persuasive.”

MAILING A QUARTER MILLION POSTCARDS

The "Save the Date" postcards announcing the Bicentennial of the University are ready to go and our mailing staff is working diligently to complete the addressing and sorting in preparation for dropping four pallets of cards off at the post office. The management of a mailing list of a quarter million names and addresses fits well with the capabilities of the Printing and Copying Services. Our mailing team reviewed the list provided by the President's Office, making sure there were no duplications and that all of the addresses were deliverable. Running the cards through our addressing equipment took several days. Here Jessie Noel packages postcards into bundles sorted by zip code ready for mailing. All of the cards will be dropped at the post office this week and will be on their way to the many alumni and friends of the University.

PRESIDENT’S OFFICE ON PRESS

Preparations for the celebration of UVA’s 200th anniversary begin at the University printing office. Representatives of the President’s Bicentennial Committee have been preparing their Save the Date announcement mailing. Here Elyse Girard and Rachael Eller review a fresh printed sheet that has just been pulled off the five-unit Heidelberg offset press. They review the color to make sure they have a perfect match to the digital proof they approved earlier in the process. Production manager Stephen DeLuca stands by to answer questions.

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PRINTING BROUGHT TO LIFE

FLEXING OUR MUSCLE

We love showing off a little. The school year always ends with a big push here at the UVA Printing Office. Printing and Copying Services is responsible for preparing the Finals Programs used at the celebration of UVA’s graduating students each year. This 56-page magazine-size “program” lists every student receiving a degree in each of the eleven Schools of the University plus the College of Arts and Sciences and the Data Science Institute. Doctors of Philosophy have their dissertation title included with their name, and every undergraduate receiving honors is noted. Recipients of Student and Faculty Awards and members of Honorary Societies are listed. And rounding it all out are the words of “The Good Old Song.”

The most daunting task, of course, is accuracy. Working with the University's Registrar's office, our experienced team of compositors and proofers carefully ensure names are spelled right, titles are correct, and no one is forgotten.

Printing is monumental. The almost 40,000 programs contain close to two-and-a-quarter-million total pages. The job requires over eight skids of paper, each skid weighing close to a ton. Moving this much paper quickly and efficiently through our printing and binding equipment gives each member of Printing and Copying Services a chance to demonstrate the skills they have mastered in their years of service to the University. The result is a printed piece which we know will be cherished in the homes of many for years to come. It is our great honor to participate in the production of this document recording the accomplishments of the University of Virginia each year!