From Idea to Print and Mailing – Our Work Experience Week at SAPC

At SAPC, we really enjoy supporting work experience placements with local secondary schools. Recently we were joined by model pupils Noah and Reuben from Poltair School, who were excellent additions to our team for the week.  They were enthusiastic, conscientious and talented, and designed great business cards. Look out for them in the future!

This is Reuben and Noah’s blog about their time with us….

Work experience is a great opportunity for students nationally to gain some experience in the workplace that isn’t available at school. St Austell Printing Company did a great job of organising and hosting two students. They had a week packed full of activities that showed what the company was about and showcased the printing process.

The week was structured around the designing of business cards and branching out into the different departments to provide a full week of different processes. This included the digital design process, Pre-press, print, finishing and finally mailing. These provided a variety of new skills, each of which can be transferred to school and work.

In the digital department, we started off by brainstorming different ideas for our own business card designs on paper. These were later transferred to the Macs where we used InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator. Each program was used for a different purpose that helped us to achieve the final product. The business card designs were then exported and transferred to the Pre-press department.

In Pre-press, we were shown the different aspects of the department. This included quotes, plate making and arranging the printed products. We got to create a quote for our own business cards and design the plates.

In the litho printing department we were given a tour and showed the purpose and process of multiple machines, some of which we were able to use. Here we printed our business cards on the litho press and learnt about the stages involved in production. The cards were litho printed onto coated paper and once done were moved onto the next stage.

In finishing and bindery, we had the opportunity to use multiple finishing machines and laminated the cards. We helped to pack booklets straight from the booklet maker in to polybags.

The final department that we visited was Mailing, where we were shown the operations that take place there. This included the assembly of packaging, hard back book cover production and postage. We were given the opportunity to construct a hard back book cover after being shown the process by a member of the team.

“Overall, it was a brilliant placement with never a dull moment,” said Noah. “During the week we were given a timetable that mapped out where and when we had to be and I learnt so much. A huge thanks to the team at SAPC.”

Reuben said “Moving around and through each department has created a very enjoyable experience and taster of working life. Each day has been fun and informative and being around the friendly team at the SAPC has made the experience everything I could have asked for.”