AIS Bulletin - color layout (a long explanation)

Hi all:

I'm not trying to make this list a forum for Bulletin news!  But a question 
came up today....

A few months ago, Rita Gormley asked me about the placement of color pages in 
the Bulletin.  I told her simply that we don't have any choice about which 
pages are color, because of the way the printing is done, and I didn't go into 
any details.  But today at our club's meeting, a similar question was posed by 
Dave Silverberg, and he indicated that other people have commented on this 
too.  So if you'd like to hear the explanation of how the color pages end up 
where they do, then read on!  If not, just hit your delete button!!

The Bulletin is actually printed on large pieces of paper, approximately 3' x 
4'.  These sheets are called signatures, and each signature holds 16 Bulletin 
pages.  So the number of pages in every Bulletin must be a multiple of 16.  And 
if you look at almost any recent Bulletin, I think you'll find that it has 
exactly 128 pages, which works out to 8 x 16.  In other words, each Bulletin 
requires 8 signatures....

If the first large sheet happens to start off with pages 1 and 7, for example, 
of course the other side of that sheet has to have page 2 printed on the back 
of page 1, and page 8 on the back of page 7, etc., etc.

Printing in color is a different process and much more expensive than printing 
in black and white.  For reasons of budget, we can only have one signature that 
is printed in color.  That means that each Bulletin can have a maximum of 16 
color pages.  And these pages are normally the exact same pages in each issue:  
pages 33, 36-37, 40-41, 44-45, 48-49, 52-53, 56-57, 60-61, and 64.  If we have 
too many text pages, we sometimes print b&w on a color page.  In the October 
issue, all 16 pages were color; in the recent January issue, 14 were color, and 
two pages from the color signature were printed in b&w because we needed the 
space.

Regarding setting up the color section:  We have to give first priority to 
placing the ads, because those are helping to pay for the cost of the 
Bulletin.  So:  Paul Black had a two-page color ad; Keith Keppel and Eureka 
garden books had ads that required a color page with a b&w page right next to 
it; and Sutton's, Lowell Baumunk, and Aitken's each had a single color page.  
Then we gave one color page each to the AIS calendar ad and the Siberian 
Convention invitation.  I wanted to give a two-page spread to the "flatties" 
pictures, one page to the dark irises pictures, one page to the median poll 
winners, and a page to the pictures to accompany the short articles about the 
Morgan-Wood and Caparne-Welch medals.  And all that had to be worked in to the 
16 pages that can be color....

So there you have it.

Okay, sorry to have bored you for so long -- those of you who got this far!  If 
you have any questions, please feel free to send a note to me off-list, unless 
you're certain that it's something that will be of interest to the majority of 
the list.  I think a lot of space has been used up by Bulletin messages now, so 
it would probably be better to contact me off-list.

Thanks!
Bruce

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