Let there be (day)light

Well, it’s finally here. The Service Bureau’s very own wide format daylight balanced viewing area (and the largest viewing area on campus)

our new daylight balanced viewing area

The lighting bank is made by Just-Normlicht (which we consider to be the best) and will make the daylight balanced viewing of your test strips and prints from the Bureau easy (and fun! well, maybe).

Why should you view your test strips (or any print) in daylight balanced light? Viewing in daylight ensures that the colors that you are seeing are untainted by  the various color casts present in other light bulbs and lighting conditions. It is essentially a pristine viewing environment in which you can assess your print and decide what changes (if any) you need to make.

standard school fluorescents

daylight balanced

Pretty big difference, right? So next time you print at the Service Bureau, don’t forget to step around the corner and view your print in the viewing area. We think you will be happy with the results.

-Michael

14 Karat Goldplated Staples

Studio OOOMS thinks we can all agree that the overly bland corporate environment can use any type of excitement boost that it can get. Enter these 14 Karat goldplated staples.

Intended primarily as a form of jewelry, these luxury pieces can be applied to clothing (or just about anything) with the help of your average stapler. Of course you can also impress your boss by turning in your next report decked out in gold. He will feel you.

140,00 euro

Not the most practical office accessory but still sort of cool in an out of touch “the economy is still kicking” kind of way. Studio OOOMS presents their 14 Karat goldplated staples.

“Studio OOOMS thinks we can all agree that the overly bland corporate environment can use any type of excitement boost that it can get. Enter these 14 Karat goldplated staples.

Intended primarily as a form of jewelry, these luxury pieces can be applied to clothing (or just about anything) with the help of your average stapler. Of course you can also impress your boss by turning in your next report decked out in gold. He will feel you.”

For info or to purchase check out OOOMS site.

What I did on my summer vacation

As the halcyon days of late summer pass and we drag out our sweaters and flannel in preparation for a proper chicago fall, it is only natural for our thoughts to return to those carefree times when our days were spent lounging by the lake, and taking endless bike rides.

Right.

At the Service Bureau we spend our summers preparing and fine-tuning our operation for the return of students. For me that means mostly creating  profiles for any new papers and printers as well as fine tuning those already in our system.

What does this mean exactly?

First of all, I am talking about ICC profiles. I create custom profiles for all our papers and printers.  Put simply, this is the way we ensure that the colors you see in your file are interpreted correctly by our printers. (we have 4 printers by the way, 2 Epson 9800’s, an Epson 11880 and our newest Epson 9900)

This is done first by printing color swatches.  Thousands of them for every paper and printer we have.

12,000 color swatches waiting to be scanned

Then all the swatches must be “read” into the computer so the profiling software can compare the scanned results with what the program thinks the printed color should be.  A few years back this meant reading them all with a handheld scanner.  These days I get to use my best friend the Gretag-Macbeth IO scanning table and eye-one spectrophotometer.  This takes a bit of time, but it’s mesmerizing to watch.

Once all the targets are read the program compares the results with its own data (tweaked to the parameters we tell it), then crunches the data and spits out a (hopefully) usable profile. If the results are not perfect, it’s back to printing and reading color swatches.

hours and hours of work

It’s all worth it though. The hours I spend creating these profiles ensure the highest quality of precision for your inkjet printing.

The weird part about it is that I actually enjoy it.

-Michael

Etsy: We Can Do That

How’s your Etsy store doing? Have you adequately monetized your art school education yet? Well why not? The Service Bureau can help. Here are a few of the things we can do:

Vinyl Graphics. (selling for: $13.00 / do it at the Bureau for: $4.00)

Buttons. (this item’s actually a good deal at $1.00 for 8 buttons, but make them at the Bureau for $0.25 and charge more)

Inkjet Prints. Duh. (selling for $14.00 + $6.00 S&H / make it at the Bureau for $4.22)

Sketchbooks and other books. (selling for $18 + $4.50 S&H / make it at the Bureau for $1.50)

Check it out. Look at what these things are going for and then look how much we charge.

One of the Many Things We Burn

CD and DVD duplication & labeling is one of our most popular services. People often ask how we make our duplicates. Here’s the rub:

We use a duplication method where the digital information in the master disc is extracted by a duplicator and burned onto blank media with a laser. This method differs from replication, where discs are molded from raw plastic and physically formed into an exact copy of the master.

The differences are usually minimal, although the duplication process that we use has a slightly higher chance of producing discs that are unplayable in certain players, especially for DVD’s. We use a bit-by-bit verification process for all duplication jobs to ensure that each copy is exact. Check out this link for more details.

-Chris

Staff Side Projects – The Prototype Controller

So I had this idea to create a custom-made arcade stick for one of the current generation gaming consoles. Taking a look at my options with controllers I decided the Xbox 360 had the easiest controller to deal with. So once I had figured out what controller I wanted to use, it was time to start designing this thing.

I dove right into Rhino to get the controller shell created.

Prototype Controller in Rhino

Once I had the shell created, I printed it out on the Rapid Prototyper in white to match the Xbox 360 standard shell color. Now the fun part; rewiring the 360 controller to fit into this shell.

Starting off I, gutted the 360 controller and then I wired into the new shell the attachments for power (top of shell) and headphone jack (bottom).

From there, I wired up the controller to extend the analog stick away from the circuit board (as seen below). I also added an extension on the battery as well.

Now that the controller analog stick was extended, it was time to place it into the shell and work on wiring up the buttons.

With the contents in place I had to figure out a way to get the buttons to rest above the circuit board and be able to be pressed down by prototyped buttons. What I did from this point was cut out a piece of acrylic on the laser cutter and designed it so it could slip over the pegs and rest above the circuit board.

Now that the wiring was complete, it was time to test the controller. I went home and promptly booted up my Xbox…but the controller would not connect wirelessly. No problem, I have a usb connection for it. So I plug the cable in and reboot my Xbox. The result it not what I expected… Red Ring of Death. Oh no! I panicked at that point and promptly unplugged it fearing I had ruined my system. I rebooted the system and to my relief it works just fine. That means there was a problem with the controller itself. I figured using a wireless controller was going to be too difficult with this project, so at this point I’m in the process of using a wired version as I won’t have to deal with a battery (which could have caused the problem).
Stay tuned for more as this project begins to make some real progress!

-Mike

Ponoko Knows Laser Cutters

For anyone looking for a good site to learn about laser cutters and cool projects, the Ponoko blog is excellent.

If you’re getting technical, here’s a great article on how much volume the laser burns away when cutting acrylic (aka the width of the laser’s kerf).

Ponoko also operates a store and laser cutter service if you’re in the market (like after graduation when you can’t use the AOC’s laser cutter anymore…).

Chad

Get Nerdy With The Buttons, Already

(via swiss miss)

Don’t forget – The Service Bureau makes buttons for $0.30/$0.25 each, no minimum.

Small Change in Laser Cutter Rules Means Big Difference in Making Reservations

We’ve recently made a small but important change to our laser cutter reservation rules; previously, laser cutter reservations had to be made at least 24 hours in advance, but we’ve knocked it down to just three hours.

This is in thanks to our awesome auto-updating laser cutter reservation schedule, as well as our new digital signage which displays the current day’s laser cutter schedule for all to see at the AOC.

This means our users can now make reservations on the same day, without having to plan ahead an entire 24 hours.

w00t!

-Chris

Here Comes Bookbinding Pricing!

I should start off by saying that while we now more or less compete with services such as lulu.com and blurb.com, the Service Bureau’s bookbinding service is not meant to replace the need for those services entirely. In fact we feel that, like our button-making, we may even drive more business to our competitors in the long run, which would be great. Our purpose is to fill a niche and make available a specialized service to the SAIC community that can’t be found elsewhere.

We can’t be everything to everyone, and there are things that Lulu and Blurb can do that we can’t (such as distribution, shipping, online storefronts, ISBN numbers, large quantities, hard covers, etc).

On the other hand, there are things we can do that they can’t: Provide customer service, print on a wide variety of materials at a higher quality, bind nearly anything, provide soft-proofing (soon), etc. Does this mean every artist book made at SAIC should be perfect bound at the Service Bureau from now on? I hope not. Are we the only option in town? Definitely not.

So without further ado, here’s how the introductory pricing will work:

• To initiate a binding job, please talk to a staff member to get a quote and get all the details straight. Our pricing depends on the size and quantity of the book, so we’ll need to calculate your quote for you until the documentation is ready.
• We’ll need your files in PDF format, both a file for the inner pages, and a file for the cover/spine/cover. We can help you with this, and documentation is in the works.
• All bound books carry a $5 binding service fee, which covers the additional setup (and there’s a lot of setup on our end), binding, and trimming.
• Pages printed as part of a bound book will be charged at a special rate. Here are some examples:
  • qty: 1-9 x 30 page book = $18.50 (Blurb = $22.95, Lulu = $11.90)
  • qty: 10-50 x 30 page book = $17.00 (Blurb = $20.66, Lulu = $11.90)

The pricing is actually much more complicated than this, but you get the idea. So now you’re
thinking, “why wouldn’t I just go to Lulu?” Well, keep in mind these details about Lulu:

1. They have a choice of two kinds of paper: “standard” and “publisher grade” (thin). We’ll print on anything that we carry. We’ll also bind things that you bring in, so your book could be made of nearly anything. So far we’ve noticed that inkjet-printable canvas makes a great cover…
2. They also have a 32 page minimum. We have no size, quantity, or page minimum, though less than 1/8″ spines start to look a little funny.
3. They also have 10 sizes to choose from, which is not too shabby, but we have no set sizes, other than that our binder can only handle a spine up to 12″ tall. You can create your file in any program you want (but please give it to us as a high-quality PDF with fonts embedded). We’ll even round the corners of the book if you want. Hell, why not make your cover on the laser cutter?
4. If you buy a book from Lulu and there is a problem, here is their Return Policy. Note the part where it says: “Note: Because of the production expense of print on demand manufacturing, Lulu cannot cancel orders, accept returns or provide refunds on these products.” Here is our Reprint Policy. Note where we say, “We will check your submitted file and the output in question to the best of our ability. This is not a guarantee that we will catch your mistakes or technical problems, but we do our best to avoid them. We will take responsibility for any defects we cause in your output, whether they be technician error or equipment failure. There are three options in these cases where the SB/AOC is at fault…“
5. Still not convinced? See this and this. More examples of SB quality and options to come.

There is obviously a lot more fine print to our services than I can cover here, so stay tuned. We’re also working on documentation on how to prepare your files.

Chad