Hot off the presses: How K-Stater magazine gets to your mailbox
The sky was still dark and campus was quiet as members of the K-State Alumni Association’s
communications team pulled out of the Alumni Center parking lot at 4:30 a.m. and drove
down the road.
What were we doing at work so early? K-Stater magazine editor Tim Schrag ’12 and associate director of communications Ashley Pauls
were headed up to Liberty, Missouri, for a magazine press check.
Every quarter, the K-Stater magazine is mailed out to 33,000 Alumni Association member households. It’s printed by LSC Communications, and occasionally
Alumni Association communications staff members will travel to Missouri to watch the
magazine as it rolls off the presses.
During a press check, communications staff will look over the test prints of the magazine pages and work with the printing technicians to make tiny adjustments to the colors that appear on paper. We love our K-State purple…but it can be a tricky color to get just right in print. LSC even orders special ink just for our signature purple!
The magazine starts out as giant rolls of paper that are run through a series of ink stations where different colors are applied.
The K-Stater is printed in a series of 16 pages called signatures (five signatures in total) that are later trimmed down to eight double-sided pages. These pages will all be glued together to form the 84-page magazine.
Printing the magazine takes a full work day, and presses were still rolling after Tim and Ashley reviewed the final signature test and previewed the magazine cover. However, the trip is worth it to ensure the best possible version of the magazine makes it into the hands of our readers.
We hope you are enjoying the fall 2022 issue of K-Stater magazine! Not yet a member of the Alumni Association? Join now to receive future magazine issues.