UAA Copy & Print Center wins top award at college printers conference

UAA’s Copy & Print Center won a platinum award in the “Adhesive Graphics & Wraps” category at the Association of College & University Printers national conference in April.

UAA was up against nine other schools, including the Ivy League’s Yale University.

The award was given in recognition of a new, double-sided adhesive graphic on a panel of windows in the Spine between Rasmuson Hall and the Avis Alaska Sports Center. The adhesive displays the Seawolf logo and UAA’s new tagline: “Your Journey. Your Community. Your Impact.”

In an interview with The Northern Light, Copy & Print Center Supervisor Richard Little said that “the installation was a two day install.”

Little said that it took about two weeks of planning to begin the installation once the Copy & Print Center received the design.

One of the challenges in getting the graphic up was “getting the angle right,” said Little. The portion of the Spine that the graphic is located in has an elevation change, resulting in windows that are not perfectly square or rectangular.

Another challenge was the double-sided nature of the graphic, with the image on both sides.

Little said that the graphic was printed on a clear piece of material then laminated to an opaque material on which the mirrored version of the graphic was printed. This process allowed for the graphic to be visible from inside and outside of the Spine.

“It couldn’t be more than a … quarter of an inch off,” he said. “It was definitely challenging.”

Little said he was prepared for the challenge. “I started printing back when I was 18,” he said. He began by reading books on how to work with and fix printing machines. He has since created a career of printing and has “worked in several different shops here in Anchorage and Alaska.”

Little had the help of Copy & Print Center Production Technician Jeremy Ivy during the install. The pair did the install in December and experienced no issues during the process.

The design for the graphic was all done in-house at UAA. In an email to The Northern Light, University Marketing and Communications Art Director Joe Nedland – who was responsible for designing the graphic – explained his process. He wrote that he began working on the design “back in September.”

Nedland wrote that the different window sizes and shapes required “that the dimensions and angles [of the graphic had] to be very accurate in order to get it to fit and look right.”

To ensure accuracy, Nedland enlisted the help of Dr.Gennady Gienko who is a UAA professor of geomatics. In October, Gienko used a “3D laser scanner” to precisely measure the Spine with an accuracy of one to two millimeters.

Once the measurement work was out of the way, Nedland wrote that he was able to complete “artwork for both the internal facing and external facing views” by the third week of November.

Nedland wrote that he is proud of the award and highlighted the teamwork required to make the graphic happen.

“This award is even more special because of all the collaboration that went into it to make it happen. It would not have worked as smoothly as it did if everyone wasn’t able to contribute their part at a high level.”

To view the graphic, students need simply to take a walk through — or drive under — the Spine while on campus.