March 2008: Project Spotlight: PPI's 2008 Print Resource Guide

How well do you know PPI?

PPI is the Pacific Printing & Imaging Association, a regional affiliate of PIA, Printing Industries of America. PPI is the Pacific Northwest's vitally important non-profit trade association for the graphic arts industry. PPI offers networking and educational opportunities, provides valuable support services in many functional areas and distributes a lot of useful industry information. In short, if you're not a member, you might want to look into joining this fine organization.

For many reasons, Rapid Bind is once again proud to bind PPI's 2008 Print Resource Guide. This compiled book is widely regarded as the definitive resource for information about Northwest printers, finishing companies and other suppliers to the trade.

Production challenges for a book of this sort are formidable. For starters, many printers supply their own promotional sheets for inclusion. Rapid Bind first must standardize all the sheets that arrive in a multitude of sizes, thicknesses and coatings. Every tab features a different set of characteristics. Rapid Bind did all the punching, tab cutting, collating and semi-concealed Wire-O binding.

About Semi-Concealed Covers
The semi-concealed cover style was especially appropriate for this project. With all the different sheets being bound, the semi-concealed cover elegantly provides a uniform view to the world when the book is stacked on a shelf next to other bound books. However, when pulled off the shelf, the pages lie flat as a board, which is very convenient for end-users.

Compared to fully-concealed wraparound covers, semi-concealed cover designs require significantly less paper. This translates to a lower production cost without sacrificing any functionality.

Editor's Note: Rapid Bind's President, Sue Hein, is a past-president of PPI.

The Rapid Bind Advantage
Many complex Wire-O projects involve post press processes as varied as folding, punching, die cutting, index tabbing, attaching, gluing, remoist gluing, ink jet imaging, round cornering and more. We at Rapid Bind pride ourselves on our under-one-roof solution to challenging bindery jobs. If we can make PPI advertisers happy with how we handled their work, imagine what we can do for you.