How'd They Print That? A Panoramic View

After seeing examples of panoramic binding—where individual spreads are scored, folded, and glued front to back, creating a lay-flat book without image-gobbling gutters—Rich Pauptit, president of Flash Reproductions (Etobicoke, Ontario) and his team decided to test the limits of the technique. Pauptit sought partners to complement his business's printing capabilities and help conceptualize an interesting project. The Toronto-based team consisted of Specialties Graphics Finishers, a renown bindery; Up Inc., a branding, design, and communications firm; and photographer Sandy Nicholson. Together, they arrived at 0to100, a delightful, 216-page book featuring Nicholson's portraits of 100 individuals, aged exactly 0 to 100 years old.

The elevator pitch sounds simple yet the ride was anything but.

The first milestone was agreeing on the biggest benefit of panoramic binding: no gutters, with images running fully across the spread. Or, as Pauptit calls it, "a book that consists entirely of center spreads!" From there, they arrived at the idea of showing people's faces with their nose dead center in the gutter: a nightmare situation in either a perfect-bound book or saddle-stitched brochure. Originally conceived as a large-format coffee table book that would open to 24 inches wide by 18 inches high, the project had to be downsized because the paper was curling too much. But what they lost in width and height they made up for in thickness, with the final book measuring 5.5 inches wide by 10 inches high and 2 inches thick.

The next challenge was gluing the pages together so the spreads stacked up correctly and did not shift. This meant searching for the right paper, found with Huge Paper which supplied Nice Matte, a 115-lb. coated Text sheet with plenty of tooth to react properly with the glue that was applied in minimal quantities and had to be left sitting three or four days before handling. The body is printed offset in CMYK with a pearlescent metallic spot for the portrait backgrounds, giving them a subtle bronze sheen. Forms were set 6-up on 23-by-35-inch sheets so that the pages could be folded against the grain, which may seem counter-intuitive but, because any potential cracking could be hidden with the spine, this set-up allowed for the best use of the sheet.

Once printed, stacked, and aligned, the book could be trimmed. And at 2 inches thick, it trimmed like a sophisticated brick. To expose the binding, the book features a cloth spine that does not adhere to the body, giving it remarkable flexibility that allows it to open up to a full 360 degrees. The spine is sandwiched between two extra-heavy pieces of chipboard, and both are silkscreened—the spine with a brown spot color and the cover with a pearlescent gloss— providing a raw contrast to the otherwise smooth presentation. Each book takes an average of 45 to 60 minutes to put together in contrast to, say, the 1,500 units that can be assembled via perfect binding in under an hour.

Every minute is worth it for sure. The result serves as a wonderful delivery for Nicholson's superbly detailed and personal portraits as well as for Up Inc.'s understated design, The Gas Company's (another Toronto partner) photo retouching, and, of course, Flash Reproduction's printing. Each of the project's partners got a share from the 1,000 print run of 0to100, and they each use and distribute on their own. The project is available online at www.0to100project.com and as a free iPad application worth downloading—you don't have to worry about gutters with it!

Editor’s note: After a 15-month hiatus, Cygnus Graphics Media is excited that “How’d They Print That?” is back! For years, the wildly popular page graced the inside back cover of the now-defunct Graphic Arts Monthly magazine. Printing News has resurrected the print lab of sorts under the editorial eye of Mark Vruno. So if you know of a particularly “cool” sample you’d like to see featured here, email [email protected].

About the author: Born and raised in Mexico City, Vit is a graphic designer and writer now living in Austin, TX. He is co-founder and principal of UnderConsideration, a graphic design firm and publishing enterprise all rolled into one. Among the handful of design industry blogs he runs is FPO (For Print Only), celebrating the reality that print is not dead by showcasing the most compelling printed projects.