Thanks to our sponsor Rhino Print Solutions for doing a stellar job. The pressman, Tony O'Neil was very zen-like in his approach. He had very few words but the ones he did share were zingers. The sheet was clean and tweaks were quickly implemented. Graham Torres was his feeder. The two worked together in almost complete silence.

^{Pressman Tony O'Neil.}

The quantity for the AR was only 800 so the actual check lasted longer than the run. When the press was running, Tony and Graham were happy.

This was my first time at Rhino so I took a tour lead by VP of Prepress and colour calibration phenom, Grant Bailey. Very knowledgeable guy and super-into what he does. He first showed off an array of promotional material outlining their capabilities: hexachrome, embossing and die cutting, aqueous, digital printing, perfect binding, etc, etc. An impressive range. Oh, did i mention that they have a 12-colour press? I didn't even know a press like that existed let alone operating in town. Also impressive was the FSC certification (which we implemented for our AR) and being powered by Bullfrog Power.

Grant was explaining their proofing workflow when we walked up to a job that was coming off a press. He showed me the job's Epson proof and compared it to the printed sheet and the match was perfect. This wasn't a piece of pre-prepared Rhino propaganda, this was an everyday job. Many of us designers have had their share of inaccurate proofs so this was good to see.

On our way to the prepress area I saw lots of smiles. I met Dominic Cassettari, the coordinator that has been very patient and helpful during the time leading up to delivery.

Another cool thing that Grant tells me is that Rhino is in the process of acquiring the G7 Master Printer designation. They've already implemented the process and are awaiting certification from IDEAlliance.

Overall, Rhino's a really solid shop that was larger and with more capabilities than I was expecting. Looks like my recommended list of high-end printers has an addition.

www.rhinoprintsolutions.com

GDC/BC 2009 Annual Report PDF Download (5.3 Mb)