Goldsmiths - University of London

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Services

We offer the following services:

Black & White (Mono) Digital Copying / Printing

We have an Oce B&W 6150 digital printer, with integral in-line collating, stapling and perfect binding features.

The 6150 is a high speed machine, running at 150 black & white prints/copies per minute. It prints direct from PDF’s, and can also scan (ie copy) from paper originals. It prints/copies all sizes, up to SRA3, and onto a wide variety of paper finishes, including matt and glossy, coated and uncoated, and NCR, up to a weight of 300gsm. Labels and plastics (recyclable please) can be used also.

The 6150 is the best value, and quickest, method on campus for mono run lengths up to 2000. For larger mono runs, litho printing may be a cheaper alternative. We can advise on a per-project basis.

The 6150 is also ideally suited for variable data print runs (aka direct mail or mail merge), whether small or large. A run of 1000 personalised letters, invitations or certificates for example can be produced in 10 minutes on the 6150, compared to three hours on a typical desktop printer or two hours on a departmental MFD. For more information on variable data and direct mail printing see here.

Documents produced on the 6150 can be combined with documents produced on our other print devices, and a wide variety of finishing techniques then applied, including trimming, scoring, folding, booklet making, binding, drilling, laminating, stapling, etc.

Artwork for the B&W 6150 should be supplied as print-ready size-for size PDF’s, with crop marks if applicable, and should not be imposed, or as single-sided paper originals for scanning/copying.

If you supply your files using our on-line digital print ordering system they are converted to PDF’s automatically, from a wide variety of file types, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, JPG’s, etc. We can also make PDF’s for Variable Data Printing or Digital Archiving if required. This system is scheduled to go live in July 2010.

A portfolio of materials digitally printed on the 6150 is available to view at our Front Desk.

Digital printing is not suitable for documents that need to be put through subsequent printing processes, such as Headed Letter Paper, or forms that will be over-printed. This requires offset litho printing.

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Colour Digital Printing / Copying

We have an Oce cps800 digital colour printer/copier, which can scan and print (ie copy) from paper originals, and also print direct from PDF’s. 

This is a seven-colour machine (CMYK+RGB) with excellent colour matching and coverage, suitable for reproducing solids, half-tones, and photographs, including skin-tones.

A portfolio of materials digitally printed and copied on the cps800 is available to view at our Front Desk. Here you will also see our 2010 UPMG Award for Best HE In-house Print, which we won for a project produced digitally, using this printer.

It copies/prints all sizes, up to SRA3, and onto a wide variety of paper finishes, including matt and glossy, coated and uncoated, and NCR, up to a weight of 350gsm, and duplexes (prints on both sides of a sheet). Labels and plastics (preferably recyclable please) can be used also.

The cps800 is the best value, and quickest, method for low to medium colour run lengths (up to 1000). For larger colour runs, litho printing is usually a cheaper alternative.

The cps800 is also ideally suited for variable data print runs (aka direct mail or mail merge).

Digital printing is not suitable for documents that need to be put through subsequent printing processes, such as Headed Letter Paper, or forms that will be over-printed. This requires offset litho printing.

Documents produced on the cps800 can be combined with documents produced on our other machinery, and a variety of finishing techniques applied, including trimming, scoring, folding, booklet making, binding, drilling, laminating, stapling, etc.

Artwork for the cps800 should be supplied as print-ready size-for size PDF’s, with crop marks if applicable, and not imposed, or as single-sided paper originals for scanning (copying).

If you supply your files using our on-line digital print ordering system they are converted to PDF’s automatically, from a wide variety of file types, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, JPG’s, etc. We can also make PDF’s for Variable Data Printing or Digital Archiving if required. This system is scheduled to go live in July 2010.

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Course Packs

New arrangements for Summer 2010 will be published here soon. Subscribe to our news-feed for emailed updates.

Design

Our design team, led by Liz Ogden, have extensive creative experience working in the commercial and Higher Education Sectors, and work closely with our in-house and external printers to create professionally finished printed products. We can also re-purpose printed designs for electronic distribution and on-line publication.

We work with the industry-standard Creative Suite applications, on the Mac platform, and can supply colour printed or Adobe PDF proofs as required. We also create artwork files suitable for printing, after your approval – and we utilise a PDF workflow system throughout D&PS (and with external suppliers), removing the potential for conversion errors and delays associated with working with multiple file types. Print-PDF’s are different to screen-PDF’s provided for proofing purposes or viewing on-line, and are not suitable for printing where a high quality finish is required. We archive and store print-ready PDF's free of charge, for future re-printing and amending purposes, delivering extra savings to our customers.

Examples of projects that our Designers have worked on in the recent past can be viewed by visiting D&PS, or requesting a visit to your office. 

For new customers, and new design (and printing) projects, a preliminary consultation is generally recommended. We will advise you on the suitability and relative merits and costs of the printing methods (digital and litho) available in-house and externally, for your materials; on how to prepare and submit raw text and image files; and work with you to establish a budget and schedule to successfully support your project’s aims and objectives. We will also arrange estimates and quotations if required.

To prepare design and print quotations, and accurately advise on best value printing methods, and suggest suitable schedules, we need to be informed of the quantities and formats of the finished products you require, and whether colour printing is required.

You can make contact with our Designers or Administrators for the preliminary discussion(s), by phone or e-mail, or make an appointment to meet with them using the College’s computer diary system if you wish.

When submitting your design project you will need to brief us on its aims and objectives, and your target audience, and we will work with you to establish the key tasks and dates (text/imagery submission; proofing; approval; printing; delivery of finished products (print and PDF). As these will vary for each customer and project, we generally take a project management approach to each individual design (and printing) job, and you will generally have a dedicated contact from within our team from start to finish.

You might also want to discuss with the Designers ideas or concepts (and any existing design rules) that you have already, as this will ultimately help us to visually articulate your message appropriately, create suitable visuals promptly for your consideration, and ultimately produce effective and value for money printed materials, that can be successfully converted for use on the web too, if that is appropriate. (We work closely with the College’s Web Team, who are also based in IT Services.)  

We strongly encourage you to provide your raw text for your design projects in its final form (as a non-formatted Word document please) to minimise expenditure on authors’ amends charges, and which are the primary cause of final costs exceeding original quotations.

If your design project requires checking by other colleagues, we recommend you allocate set times for their input, make them aware of the financial consequences of re-writes and major editing after design has commenced, and explain that a missed print deadline will very likely mean late completion and delivery. With most printing and finishing processes (in-house and externally) making up time lost in the design stages will incur additional costs, especially when out-sourced, and deadlines cannot be guaranteed in these circumstances because of comittments to other customers,

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Scanning and Digitisation

We have high speed colour and mono scanners, that process 250 A4 pages per minute, or 1500 per hour. (A typical department MFD makes 35 scans per minute.) We can scan to PDF or TIFF files, from up to A3 size papers, and can compress them for transportation and storage purposes.

To support the College's plans to maximise space usage, and reduce the volume of data it keeps in paper format, we will be working with Rosemary Harrison to develop and expand this service, and the secure shredding service, during 2011/12, and welcome suggestions on improvements that we can make to the current arrangements.

Finishing

Here is a brief overview of the added-value finishing processes we can apply to your printed materials. Please specify your requirements on your order form, and do contact us if you do not see here what you need.

Binding

We offer a variety of binding methods for your copied and printed documents, including Perfect (glue) Binding, Booklet-making (aka S/F/T), Stapling, Wire-O- and Drilling. A portfolio of examples is available to view at our Front Desk.

Facilities for binding students' course work, essays, etc are also available for assisted use in the walk-up printing and copying service area in the Rutherford Building. Supplies can be purchased at the ITS Helpdesk using a PCounter Account. Students may be interested in the Re-use Scheme operated by many departments on campus, who have supplies of second hand binders available for collection and re-use from their main offices, free-of-charge.

Booklet Making

This finishing method is suitable for documents containing between 8 and 40 pages, A4 or A5 sized, which will be printed onto A3 or A4 sheets as appropriate. We do the imposing for you, so please supply your artwork as collated A4 or A5 pages, unimposed, as a PDF or hard copy originals. After printing, the pages are folded, gathered, saddle-stiched (stapled) on the folded spine, and trimmed, bundled and packed. Card or paper covers can be used, as can special stocks such as coated and glossy materials. Booklets are often referred to as S/F/T-finished.

Collating

This is gathering together copied or printed sheets.

Drilling (aka Punching)

This is suitable for documents to be inserted into binders or lever arch files. We can drill your sets once, twice or four times, in standard binder/file positions, and will also do the inserting by special arrangement (in advance please so that we can make sure we have space to accommodate the binders/files).

Self-service hole punches are located, for free of charge use, in the printing and copying service area in the Rutherford Building.

Folding

We can handle machine and manual folding, in a wide variety of styles and formats. When deciding on your fold type, do bear in mind that digital print toners will crack where folded, as will heavy cards and boards, if the printing has not been imposed or the stock scored appropriately. These factors can significantly affect the design and end-costs of your job, so we generally recommend specifying industry-standard folds

Envelope Inserting

We can gather, fold and insert documents (inc multi-page and booklets) into envelopes, of various sizes, typically DL, C4, C5 and C6. Our equipment runs at between 2000 and 3000 insertions per hour. This service can also be combined with our label printing and variable data printing services, and in whichever combination it significantly reduces the time and costs associated with bulk mailings. Please contact us to discuss your requirements in more detail.

Laminating (aka encapsulation)

We can handle laminating (aka encapsulating) up to A0 size, doing up to A3 in-house and sub-contracting the larger sizes. Following advice from the Goldsmiths’ Disability Services Team, we use matt laminating materials only in Design & Print Services, and do not recommend glossy.

Laminating facilities are also available for assisted use in the printing and copying service area in the Rutherford Building. Supplies can be puchased from the ITS Helpdesk using a PCounter Account.

Perfect Binding

This is a hot glue mechanised method of binding. It uses card or clear acetate covers that wrap-around the front, back and spine of your A4 (or smaller) documents. They can be made from standard ranges of materials that Design & Print Services stock, or bespoke ones can be designed and printed to your specification. The materials usually used can be recycled. The minimum number of A4 sheets that can be perfect bound is 30 sheets and the maximum is 400. Please supply your files for covers separately to files for inner pages.

Stapling

We can staple collated documents that contain between two and 80 sheets of 80-gsm (or equivalent). Staple position options are illustrated here. Stapling is currently the “greenest” and quickest form of binding we offer, and is also free of charge when we do it on-line at the same time as printing and copying. We recommend its use wherever possible, as an alternative to the glue-based methods. A small charge is made for off-line collating and stapling of your own printed documents, to cover our set-up costs.

A typical departmental MFD staple betwen two and 30 sheets.

In-line and off-line stapling facilitie are provided for students free of charge in the printing and copying service area in the Rutherford Building.

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Litho Printing

We have an SRA3 two-colour offset litho press in-house, which is used primarily to produce bulk stationery orders, and which is also a cost-effective option for larger print runs in excess of 1000 of items such as forms and flyers or if digital production is not a viable option, because of its design or restricted finishing options for example.

Full colour litho printing that entails more than two colours, for example CMYK, is best value to print digitally if a run of less than 1000, or to sub-contract for larger runs, in which case we will oversee the external order for you.

A portfolio of samples of materials that have been litho printed, in-house and out-sourced, is available to view at our Front Desk.

Press schedules for litho printing must be arranged with us in advance  please, as this is a wet printing process, and is therefore not available on an instant or urgent basis, for that we recommend digital printing.

Documents produced on our litho press can be combined with documents produced on our other machinery, and a wide variety of finishing techniques applied, including trimming, scoring, folding, booklet making, binding, drilling, varnishing, sealing, laminating, stapling, etc.

Artwork for litho press printing should be PDF’s or InDesign files, and should be supplied as size-for size, with crop marks if applicable, and should not imposed. We will organise plate-making (metal or CTP as appropriate), and can provide digital or wet proofs before completing press runs if required.

Note: this facility is scheduled to be phased out when we introduce digital production of the College's stationery items (as part of the campus-wide cost reduction programme).

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Out-sourcing (aka print-buying)

We handle orders for all types of printing, but some, such as large format exhibition and conference materials, and very long runs on offset litho, cannot be produced in-house. We fill this gap by providing a print-buying service, typically by out-sourcing to LUPC- and Buying Solutions-approved suppliers, and other companies in the local community.

If your project requires out-sourcing, we will obtain quotations as part of our project-management service, and arrange the order through Agresso. you will have a single point of contact within our team, who will oversee its production from start to completion, co-ordinating the work of the third-party supplier(s) and in-house staff involved in your job's production.

Please contact us to discuss your out-sourcing requirements in more detail. Currently, to enable us to comply with the College's procurement regulations, please allow at least 5 working days for external quotation processes.

This service includes commissioning freelance designers, and overseeing mailing and distribution where needed.

Agresso's Technical Approvals Process:

We are "Tech-Approvers" for all print (and printer/MFD) orders placed through Agresso within Goldsmiths, to help ensure that all of the College's print is purchased economically and in accordance with statutory and regulatory requirements, and contractual comittments, and are able to advise individual department buyers on their corporate responsibilities in this respect.

Print orders are tech-approved for external production where that is the best value method, generally within 48 hrs of notification by Agresso. Where in-house production is better value we liaise with department buyers and authorisers to arrange production and completion of the order in-house without delay. As a general rule of thumb our in-house services are the best value production option for design, digital printing (colour and mono), most types of finishing, digitisation, and small runs of litho printing, so D&PS should always be department buyers first port of call for design and print requirements.

To help us fulfill our Tech-Approver responsibilities, we ask that full specifications are included in all print orders raised within Agresso by department buyers. We can provide assistance with this if required, please contact our Administrator or Manager.

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Paper

The College's approved paper supplier is currently Premier Paper. The contract, which is managed by D&PS on behalf of Goldsmiths, covers a wide range of papers, including recycled, and enables all departments to benefit from our bulk pricing.

  • Up-to-date product and price lists are available here
  • An illustration of paper sizes can be downloaded here
  • An illustration of envelopes and paper capacities can be downloaded here

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Department Printers/Copiers/Scanners/Multi-functional Devices

The College's currently approved suppliers for renting and servicing MFD's and networked printers and scanners are:

  • Ricoh
  • Oce
  • Canon

To order a device from one of these suppliers, please contact Sarah Gibbon or Terry O'Rourke with details of your requirement.

The rental contracts cover all costs, including toners and maintenance contracts, but excluding paper.

If you have a device rented from one of these suppliers already, you will be automatically contacted, bu us, or by the supplier, prior to its expiry date, to arrange a replacement.

The College's approved supplier for desktop and networked personal printers is currently DTP. This is a transactional procurement arrangement, and un-supported except where users opt to pay for an extended warranty. Toner costs are additional also. This arrangement is under review, following SMT's decision to phase out purchased desktop printers in favour of rented networked multi-functional office and work-group equipment across the campus, because it is cheaper and more energy-efficient to run. We are currently auditing the College's printer (and MFD) fleet, process-mapping the various supply, networking, and servicing arrangements in place, and asessing how best to integate, deliver and manage these facilities in future, to better meet end-users, our customers, needs.

In the meantime, to order a printer, please contact Sarah Gibbon or Terry O'Rourke  with details of your requirement.

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Recycling

Goldsmiths' Waste Management Strategy is looking for a 50% reduction in the waste that is sent from campus to landfill. We run several recycling schemes to support this.

Papers

We can supply bins suitable for recycling waste white paper from your office printers, copiers and MFD’s. Use these with the green sacks supplied by College Services’ Cleaning Contractor, to ensure they are regularly emptied and replenished by the Cleaners. Porters transport the filled green sacks to the central collection point (currently outside our premises) and we arrange for this to be cleared regularly by a certified recycling contractor. The costs of this are currently borne by Estates. Extra supplies of green sacks are available from Cleaning Services, at no charge.

Order these bins by emailing designandprint@gold.ac.uk, specifying recycling bins in the subject line and supplying your budget code (they cost £5 each), please also specify if you want them in flat pack form or made up for you. We will email you when they are ready to collect, usually within three days. The Porters do not deliver these bins.

It is ok to use other types of bins for collecting waste paper, providing they are lined with green sacks so that the contents are identifiable as destined for recycling, not rubbish.

Please take care to exclude waxed and adhesive papers, rubber bands, food packaging, etc from the paper recycling bins, as these products contaminate the contents making them unsuitable for cost-effective recycling. Suitable containers for recycling other types of waste material will be found on the corner of St James and New Cross Road (the "Cow Bins") and in Sainsbury's Car Park, and increasingly around the campus since Richard Groves, the College's Environmental Officer, has launched several pilot schemes. More information on these is published on the Greening Goldsmiths pages.

Empty Toners

Collection arrangements are currently under review but in the meantime you are encouraged to take or send them to the collection points in our premises, and in the Rutherford Building, near the Open Access Copiers and Printers.

Re-filled (ie recycled) toners for desktop laser printers can be purchased from ITS, contact us or the Help Desk for more information.

Newspapers

Arrangements are under review but in the meantime you are welcome to use the central collection point outside our premises.

Cardboard

Arrangements are under review but in the meantime you are welcome to use the central collection point outside our premises.

See also Secure Waste Disposal/Confidential Shredding

Secure/Confidential Waste Disposal Service

To order empty sacks and security tags to collect your confidential waste, please email designandprint@gold.ac.uk, specifying secure shredding sacks in the subject line. These will be dispatched via College Services within 24 hours, or you are welcome to call in to our Front Desk to collect them. They are sometimes known as "white sacks" but occasionally they are red or grey too. The sacks can be used to hold waste paper, cd's and dvd's and also folders/binders if they are not fit for re-use and recycling.

To arrange collection of the filled sacks, please email the same address, specifying secure shredding collection in the subject line and advising us of the number of sacks and their location. We will arrange for transport by Porters to our central collection point, which is usually done within 48 hours. Please do not arrange the transport of the sacks yourself, as we have to keep track and records of their movements for audit and reporting purposes.

We arrange the secure shredding by certified external contractors, periodically and in bulk, and it is done on-site to minimise the carbon footprint associated with this disposal service. We recharge the costs back to your department. This is priced at £5 per bag, so please do not use this service for disposing of non-confidential documents (which can usually be placed into your department’s waste paper recycling bins). If you have very large volumes of secure shredding to deal with, it is probable that we can negotiate a special price with the contractor, who may also be able to collect direct from your location, please contact us to discuss any bulk needs in more detail.

Please take care not to overfiill the sacks, to prevent problems moving them. It is ok to leave documents in their lever arch or box files, binders, etc if you are not going to re-use them; the shredding machinery can cope with these heavier materials as well as papers and cards, staples, etc.

This service also covers confidential shredding of CD's and DVD's, in or out of their cases.

To support the College's plans to maximise space usage, and reduce the volume of files it keeps in paper format, we will be working to develop and expand this service, and our scanning and digitisation services, during 2010/11, and welcome suggestions on improvements that we can make to the current arrangements.

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Stationery

Branded Stationery

We offer the following items, all of which can be ordered on this Stationery Order Form (downloadable PDF)

Click on the links in the list above to download advice on the information you might want to include in your stationery items, recommended contact details, etc.

Goldsmiths specifies that staff must use branded stationery only, and it must be designed and printed by D&PS, to ensure complaince with branding and financial regulations.

Electronic Stationery Word Templates

The Word Templates are downloadable from k-drive/repro/branding. You will need a password to install and use your department's HLP template on your PC, which is available from your Departmental Administrator. It is not compatible with the Mac OS. The Fax Header and Memo Templates are generic, can be used on the Mac OS as well as PC, and can be downloaded without a password.

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Variable Data Printing

aka direct mail, personalised mail, etc

Details coming soon.


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