Editorial Note: Saghey Barcenas is a member of the KAWC Student Newsroom as well as an employee at the AWC Print Services. This story offers an inside look at the college's print shop.
Every day, thousands of students and faculty walk past posters and brochures across Arizona Western College's campuses and beyond. While these materials serve as a constant presence for the college, the physical production process behind them requires a precise combination of technical expertise and brand enforcement.
For the team at AWC Print Services, transforming a digital file into a tangible object involves far more than pressing "print" on a computer.
According to Print Services Assistant, Saul Robles, the process requires managing highly specific variables for each project.
“So there's a lot more involved than just pressing a button when it comes to the printing process,” Robles explained. “There's quite a few details that are involved in very specific. What type of paper, black and white, single-sided, double-sided… Aside from that, we still have to make configurations to the printer. However, many times we do have to go back and ask questions to the customer.”
Robles added that his team frequently collaborates with graphic designers to implement necessary adjustments before production can begin.
Graphic designers play a vital role in this workflow. For Michael Rose, a senior graphic designer for marketing and communications at AWC, the print shop is a necessary partner in maintaining institutional standards.
“Print services is kind of like our first line of defense in protecting the college's brand,” he said. “A lot of times, people don't realize they need to set up certain colors or things like crop marks and bleeds. Then print services will send it back to us to redesign it or to edit it so that it fits within the brand standards.”
The complexity of a project directly dictates its production timeline.
Print Production Manager Scott Rico noted that while simple jobs can sometimes be processed within a couple of days, intricate booklets and massive outdoor banners require significant planning and assembly time.
Beyond scheduling, environmental factors introduce unpredictable challenges into the daily routine. In Yuma's desert climate, shifting temperatures and humidity levels can alter how paper and toner interact with the copiers.
Rico, who has managed the shop for 19 years, said that even identical jobs printed on the same paper a week apart can present unique technical challenges.
“We could get a job that comes in and it's easy, and you can print the same job a week later on the same paper, same everything, and it can just fight you on every little thing,” he said. “Humidity can affect everything. Copiers, toner, paper is affected by temperature a lot. So it's consistently different and it's always a challenge.”
Sill, Rico emphasized that the variety and constant troubleshooting are what make the position engaging.
The resulting visual materials are primary tools for local advertising and student recruitment. Rico said that eye-catching campus signage plays a direct role in driving future student enrollment, making the shop's output beneficial to the entire college community in the long run.
“So, you'll see a lot of the stuff around town. Any kind of banner or poster that you see with the AWC logo usually goes through us, so we're responsible for all that printing,” he said.
For community members curious about the machinery and labor involved in modern production, the facility remains accessible. Robles recommended that anyone interested in understanding the printing process should reach out to the shop to schedule an educational tour and receive accurate production estimates for future projects.
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NOTE: Arizona Western College is KAWC's license holder.
Funding for the KAWC Student Newsroom is supported by the Local News Initiative of Southern Arizona, a fund of the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona, the Scripps Howard Fund, and generous individual local support.
