Press checks can cause butterflies in your belly — and immense delight.

A printing press check is a step in the printing process. It takes place after a printing press is set up, but before the print run is underway. It’s a last-chance review of your project before it’s professionally printed.

Press checks, to me, can be both thrilling and anxiety provoking. It’s exciting to see the culmination of hard work come to life in a printed piece! At the same time, I get nervous that there’s a tiny typo somewhere that was missed, or that a graphic element is a hair off.

There are a lot of items to check. Is the correct paper stock being used? Are the pages in order and all images cropped correctly? Are there any press imperfections? Most importantly, are color matches accurate and consistent across all pages and pieces? And that’s just a basic list! (Click here for a complete check list.)

Luckily, thanks to Neyenesch Printers, the press check for our Voices for Children impact report went smoothly. With the challenge of three separate books of various sizes with large blocks of solid color, the pressman worked hard to make sure everything was perfect. My butterflies quickly subsided. My client was thrilled with the end product – which will help advance their mission of transforming the lives of abused children by providing them with volunteer Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs).

VFC Impact Report / Interior

I’d like to give a shout out to John Trice for providing the photography. He’s terrific to work with, and his amazing images really made the report sing!