From left: Kirk Galloway, Marcus Atkins, Nige Barnes, Lindsay Frost, Eleanor Stanley, Zoe Avern and Stefan Reynolds
With a nationwide client base, long-established Buxton Press is a privately-owned printing company situated in the heart of Derbyshire. Specialising in short to medium run full colour magazine, brochure and catalogue printing, Buxton is highly respected within the printing industry and is winner of many awards. We first started printing with Buxton in December 2014 for our January 2015 editions and have been with them ever since.
As both Eleanor and Zoe had never been to see a printing press in operation, we decided to pay them a vist, alongside our designer Nige Barnes, and so we made the journey to the beautiful Peak District and Buxton itself. We met with the Managing Director of this family owned and run business, Kirk Galloway, and our lovely contact Lindsay Frost, and were given a fascinating tour by Chris Westwood.
Eleanor said: “The VantagePoint team went to visit Buxton Press this week, the printer who is responsible for printing all 126,643 copies of VantagePoint Magazine that go out to local homes over the Godalming, Guildford, Farnham, Dorking and Haslemere areas, as well as surrounding villages each month!
We were lucky enough to have a very in-depth tour of the process, covering all aspects of how the magazines are produced, from where customers upload their magazines to be printed, how the printing plates are created for each colour of ink, how the paper is cut to size and then printed with each colour layering on top of the previous, all the way to how the magazine pages are stacked neatly onto pallets, folded, cut to size and stapled before being carefully packed into boxes and sent off into the safe hands of the Royal Mail ready for their delivery to homes. We even saw the January issues (delivered to homes w/c 25th December!) undergoing their final stages of the process which was very cool!
The scale of the operation at Buxton Press was mind-blowing – all aspects of the process were completed with a huge level of attention to detail, the state-of-the-art technology that Buxton Press has invested in only helped with this. All the staff that we met were passionate and dedicated, and it was clear that the incredibly experienced workforce is one of the many reasons why Buxton Press is so successful.”
Zoe added: “It’s always an eye-opening experience to see behind the scenes of any manufacturing process, and that’s exactly the treat I had when we visited Buxton Press, the printers who produce VantagePoint Magazine.
As we toured the facility in Buxton taking in the full life cycle of the production process, the overwhelming feeling I was left with was one of admiration at the pinpoint mechanical precision and undeniable expertise. From the creation of the individually lasered CMYK print plates replicating our uploaded digital editions of that month’s VP magazines, to pages whizzing through the high-tech print machines, onto folding, cutting, stitching and finally packing by hand into boxes, it was incredibly clear to me the top notch level of Project and Team management required to get through the volume of magazines Buxton Press produces for customers all around the country. So many individual working parts, working at such speed, being constantly monitored 24/7, 5 days a week – it was a slick operation seamlessly blending modern tech with hands-on human efficiency at every stage. It was a real pleasure to meet the team that makes the physical magazine, and seeing the January issue of VP being stitched and packed was the cherry on the top of a truly informative tour.”
View our Instagram reel here.
