From idea to finished product: the people behind #PrintWorks

21 October is International Print Day, and this year’s theme is #PrintWorks. The day celebrates what print achieves and recognises the people and technology behind it. We usually spend a lot of time on technology, so today we are turning to the people and showing who does what to turn an idea into print that works.

This blog usually deals with presses, workflows and materials. This time, the spotlight is on the people who make print happen. Print is more than the beautiful book, the lavish pack or the eye-catching poster. It is also the leaflet in a box of tablets, the instructions in an appliance carton, ballot papers and packaging, wallpaper, flooring, displays and much more. None of it would exist without the many people working in the printing industry. In the EU alone, more than 600,000 of them work in over 100,000 printing companies. Germany accounts for around 95,000 of them, in some 6,000 businesses.

We have already looked at the career paths in this industry, and what it takes to follow them, in ‘A world of opportunities: careers in the printing industry’. Now we are taking a closer look at who does which work on the way to a finished print product. Much of it seems unremarkable, even a matter of course, as long as everything goes right. That's why we celebrate it today.

It all starts with an idea, then usually a brief and perhaps a few sketches. None of that means anything to a printing press, which needs data. That data comes from designers and prepress specialists. They turn the designs into artwork and build print-ready files from them, paying attention to details that should never show in the finished product: are the images sharp enough, the fonts properly embedded, is there enough bleed? Without it, a sliver of white paper shows at the edge after trimming. Then comes the back-and-forth with the client until the files are signed off. The people doing this work are found in agencies and publishing houses, in the print company itself or in a brand owner’s marketing department.

Once the files are approved, the printing plates follow: prepress images the plates for offset, while flexo plates often come from specialist repro houses. Only digital printing needs no plates at all.

With files and plates ready, the job moves to the pressroom. Whether it is technically feasible has usually been settled by now, but the press operators still check the job documents, data and materials once more. Then they make ready the press: mounting the plates, setting the paper feed and register, and adjusting the ink zones until ink and paper work together. The press proof shows whether everything is right. For all the technology and automation, the final sign-off still rests with the press operator, often with the client standing at the press for demanding jobs. Only then does the job go into the production run. Even then, the operators keep pulling sheets, comparing them with the approved sheet and correcting as soon as colour or register drift. At thousands of sheets an hour, any drift that slips through quickly turns a whole pallet into waste.

The choice of printing process is made at the very first planning stage, because it depends on the product. A daily newspaper that has to land on the doormat every morning is printed on a web offset press. Long runs on sheets typically go through offset presses at up to 18,000 sheets an hour, and the fastest now exceed 20,000. Labels, flexible film packaging and corrugated board, on the other hand, are mostly printed flexo. Its soft, flexible plates cope with a wide range of materials, from thin film to corrugated board. And where only a few copies are needed, or each one has to look different, digital printing is the obvious choice. Every process has its quirks, and the people running the presses need to know them and keep them in check.

Along the edge of the sheet, the press prints a control strip. Its solid, tint, line and grey balance patches tell the operators whether ink density and colour reproduction are on target. Anyone working here needs a good awareness of colour. But to make sure a brand red looks the same in Düsseldorf as it does in Milan or Chicago, the industry does not rely on the eye alone. ISO 12647 is an international standard that defines the printing process in measurable values.

Flat paper and board are far from the only things that get printed. A glass bottle is round, a road sign has to stay legible at night and in poor visibility, and a T-shirt needs to survive the washing machine. Jobs like these often go to screen printers. They print on glass, plastic and textiles as well as paper, and apply ink in layers five to ten times thicker than other processes do, which brings its own challenges: ink and curing have to be spot on, or the design is gone from the T-shirt after a few washes. Many of them use pad printing for small curved items such as ballpoint pens. Printed circuit boards for car electronics pass through their hands too.

A printed sheet is still a long way from being a book. It takes the finishing specialists to make it one. Before starting up the first machine, they take a close look at the sheets from the pressroom: is the ink dry, are the cut and fold marks in the right place, does the paper grain run the right way? The grain direction alone decides whether a fold breaks cleanly and whether a book will later lie flat when opened. Only then do they set up the guillotine, folding machine or saddle stitcher for the job. Test runs show whether the result meets the specification, and if something is off, they step in. After that they cut, fold, bind and add finishes, depending on what the end product needs to be.

Cutting alone shows how much experience goes into this work. Raw sheets are often not perfectly square, so the operator at the guillotine starts with a squaring cut and then works down to the final format, accurate to fractions of a millimetre. Even a millimetre out would show on every page of the finished book. Even the bevel angle of the blade is chosen to suit the stock: blunter for hard material, finer for soft.

Depending on where they work, bookbinders belong to one of two worlds. In industry, they run machines that bind books and brochures in large volumes. In the workshop, they make one-off pieces to order or restore old books, with sewn bindings and hand gilding.

Packaging specialists make folding cartons and boxes from paper, board or plastic. They design packs that have to run smoothly through the client’s packing line, because a single jammed carton can quickly bring the whole line to a halt. They also set up the die-cutting and folder-gluing machines. Hardly anyone in a supermarket gives this a second thought. Yet without packaging, many products could not be transported at all, and for food and medicines, hygiene could no longer be guaranteed at many points along the way.

So far, we have looked at work that shows in the finished product. At least as much depends on people whose contribution no customer ever sees. Before a print company accepts a job, its estimators work out what it will cost, from paper and ink to make-ready time, press hours and finishing. One miscalculation here can turn even a technically perfect job into a loss. Purchasing sources paper, inks and plates, keeping a close eye on volatile prices and delivery times. Production planners decide which job goes on which press and when, with every client’s deadline in view. And in sales and customer service, specialists translate between what a client wants and what is technically possible. On top of this come tasks such as maintenance, IT, warehousing and dispatch. Depending on the company, the people already mentioned take them on, or there are dedicated specialists for them.

Good work in this industry leaves hardly a trace: the brand red is right, and the carton runs through the line without a hitch. Whether someone is checking data in prepress, standing at the guillotine or developing a new folding carton, they all rely on knowing how material, ink and machine work together. Many of them do so in small businesses: 95 per cent of printing companies in the EU employ fewer than 20 people.

International Print Day invites everyone to share examples that show print works. We are taking our hats off to the people who make sure that such a wide range of printed products enriches our lives every day. After all, we know that #PrintWorks.

An annual day of action for the print industry, organised by Print Media Centr. In 2026 it falls on 21 October, with the theme #PrintWorks. Participants share examples on social media using the hashtag #IPD26.

In the EU, more than 600,000 people in over 100,000 companies, most of them small and medium-sized businesses. In Germany, around 95,000 employees registered for social insurance work in some 6,000 businesses.

Design and prepress, printing itself on offset, flexo, digital or screen presses, finishing and bookbinding, packaging production, and commercial roles such as estimating, purchasing, production planning and sales.

Offset printing handles long runs: sheetfed offset for brochures and catalogues, web offset for daily newspapers. Labels, flexible packaging and corrugated board are mostly printed flexo. Screen printing applies particularly thick layers of ink to glass, plastic and textiles. Digital printing needs no printing plates and suits short runs and personalised products.

They check job documents, print data and materials, make ready the printing press and match ink to paper. After the press proof, they sign off the approved sheet, and during the production run they keep colour and register in check.