Working at a Print Shop

Probably not a good idea. If ultimate goal is to be a designer, print shops are not good to have on the resume. It's a very easy to get caught in the whirlpool of production and forevermore you'll be the 'production guy' no matter where you go. You want to sell your talents as a creative.

Get into agency at any cost and fall into production only as a last resort.

Yours,

The Production Guy.

I think doing an intern at a print shop is a great idea. There are tooooooo many designers who don't know print and not enough production guys around to do their work for them. They just don't teach print anymore period and having worked with a lot of newbies over the last couple of years I can tell you the ones who are "above" printing don't get very far and definitely don't make production managers as their friends. It also allows you to build up contacts in the printing industry which can be very helpful when you branch off and become a freelancer. Printers don't like working with people who don't know how to send them the files. As a fellow production person and design I know that I have gotten further in my career having the knowledge of print that you only learn by working at a print shop.

I work in a print department for a large wholesale alcohol distributor and I design everyday. Sometimes, I can develop good concepts and other times I have to throw something together quick. Either way it's not straight production.

I would like to know what planet caoimghgin lives on where anyone can jump right out of school and get into some trendy agency. Print shops are good to have on a resume, that's just stupid. You're creating solutions and meeting client demands in a print shop just like anywhere else. On the other hand you might want to avoid the ones where you are only doing production.

The only thing that will get you into an agency is a good portfolio. Having that on top of realistic solid work experience will increase your chances even more. I'm assuming you need money and can't just wait around to get your dream job with no previous working experience.

Print is not dying, which I'm sure someone will say. Mediums like newspapers, and magazines may die but there will always be a need for good print work. Besides, knowing print along with the web stuff everyone is doing is yet another think to increase your value.

I wouldn't go to work in a print shop. I'd go to a print shop on a press run at night and hang out with the press operators and other production people. If you're a potential (or actual) client for them, they'll probably be happy to give you a tour to get you started. That's how I learned when I was starting out. I even got to know what everybody's favorite midnight snacks were when I arrived, so I'd be especially welcome by the night shift. It's really fun and you really do learn all kinds of real-world stuff that you can't pick up in books -- and that, as a print shop employee with no technical skills to bring to the starting gate, you probably would never have time to learn -- they'd stick you with photocopying resumes and manning the cash register stuff.

I would be very happy to be entirely wrong.

Still, I suspect large HR departments, creative agencies and advertising firms look at potential hires in a black & white, 'creative' vs. 'production' manner. Sure, 'production savvy creatives' are nice to have, but they are hired for their creative talent, not their production background.

As for print production, forget about it. Due to automation, increasing speed of workstations, price point of hardware coming down, quality standards eroding, there are far less prepress people than there were only 5 years ago. Simply put, there are less people being paid less money for doing more work.

Recommend, pick up HTML, Flash, MySQL, PHP, CSS and other web technologies if you want to expand resume. Easier in many ways and demand/salary for those positions are rising.

Two cents.

You are in college, you are there to learn. Doing an intern at a printshop is a very good learning experience and I would not concern yourself over how much money you are going to make. You are doing it to learn the process of print, which many new designers have no clue about. I really think the big push for on-screen design is diluting the overall quality of design from what I have witnessed these days. I did two interns while in school and did not hesitate even knowing I would not get paid for doing it. Knowledge is very valuable, keep that in mind.

And I agree with Tyler, print will never die even when the electricity goes out.

rexford

You'll learn about printing at whatever design group you work for. If you want to really learn a lot, visit as many printers as you can on as many jobs as you can and ask all the questions you can.

Printers, to a point, love educating us designers: Ensures we give them what they need to do their jobs well.

I'm going to say I read a lot of the replies on here and have to agree and disagree. The know-how of press workings is very important. I was lucky enough to land a graphic artist/design job with a small county paper here in Central Florida. When I first started they had a press on the site. The guys in prepress and downstairs would let me know when I screwed something up and I had more respect for them. Seeing someone face to face and hearing about how you didn't meet the deadline was making them working longer and in the heat, just makes you work that much harder to meet deadlines. (Not all of it was my fault, they had major software and hardware compatibility issues when I started)

I think from my standpoint. It would have been more beneficial for me to learn more about the press and what goes into printing the paper.
I think if you could land a part-time design job with a small on-site print company that would be best bet, learn from doing. IMHO

Having knowledge of how things work the entire way through - from sale of the concept down to the finished printed product - can make you a valuable asset to any company. Doesn't mean it puts you into a position that you don't want to be - if you're CLEAR about what you want to do for your career, then you don't have to worry about being stuck in the pre-press department RIPing files.

Take web design - having a knowledge of how things get coded in the background can influence how you do your front-end design in Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.

The suggestion to learn CSS, HTML, PHP, XML, XHTML, etc. is just the same as suggesting someone see what it's like to work in the pressroom. If I were to use the same argument of staying clear of the pressroom, then the same argument could be used for coding: "If I want to be a graphic designer and stick to DESIGN work, then why on earth should I learn any web language?"

The answer is clear - so you know your product inside and out.

When I was in high school, I was lucky enough to have a vocational school I could attend and earn high school credits. That vocational school is where I first started taking graphic design classes, AND, right next door to the graphic design class was a printing class. I decided to take the beginning version of the printing class simply because I wanted to see what it was like on the other end of the spectrum. I worked in the darkroom (this was before CTP technology), burned plates, loaded the plates to presses, ran a sheet-fed press, experimented with binding, ran the huge scary paper cutter, even did some silk-screening.

It's an experience I wouldn't trade for anything. I really enjoyed it and enjoyed getting a taste of what things are like after the digital design rolls over to the pressroom. I think in some ways, that knowledge has influenced how I do my print design work to this day.