Productions Department

A number of merchandise products are produced by NGC for each major exhibition making use of the images on show. Publications and products might include
- The exhibition catalog
- A small popular book of highlights
- Calendars
- Postcards and coloring cards
- Small stationary range of note-cards and greeting cards
- Large-format posters
- Mini-prints
- Fridge magnets

The masterpieces travel to London from all over the world. Designers, based in London, work from transparencies and digital scans of the images to produce the merchandise.

The production department work on the catalog first as it is the most time-consuming publication and normally shows every work in the exhibition. It is essential that colors are reproduced as accurately as possible in the catalog. The other products can then be balanced to it.

When the artwork comes from the National Gallery’s own collection, each proof stage can be checked against the original artwork to ensure as close a color match as possible. However, when an artwork comes from an outside institution, the production team has to rely on the color knowledge of the curators and other experts to ensure faithfulness to the original. This can be a costly and timely process.

Background

The production team has developed a system whereby the same color corrected file is adapted to work across the whole range of products. This happens once color correction has been completed on the academic exhibition catalog and the team is happy with the results as seen in the proofs.

The main challenge that the team experiences when producing the merchandise for each exhibition is color consistency across the whole range of products. In the case of Velazquez, for instance, the merchandise products were produced by different suppliers from across the world using both traditional lithographic and digital printing methods. Problems tend to arise when suppliers are using a variety of applications and equipment to produce products. The main exhibition catalog for Velazquez was designed in London and printed in Italy. The small highlights book was produced in Hong Kong and the remaining items were printed at a range of suppliers around the UK.


Production schedules are getting tighter alongside budgets being reduced. The physical time required to print, bind and deliver a book cannot be reduced further than it has been already so now all the time pressure is on the pre-press stage.

In the past, the production team would have spent very intense periods of time in the pre-press environment working with the re-touchers and ensuring that the marking up of proofs with often very subtle changes was handled.

 

EIZO Solution

In 2006, the NGC production team make it their priority to find a solution which would reduce the amount of time taken to produce the correct colors.

EIZO CG220 monitors were introduced to the NGC production area, as well as many of the printers and manufacturers offices, allowing (for the first time) the observation of color correction to be produced from a distance and advised accordingly.

The EIZO CG220, is taken from the ColorEdge monitor series. ColorEdge Monitors were the first LCDs to have hardware calibration. But the most important feature of the EIZO CG220, is its revolutionary wide color spectrum.

Substantially more colors are visible on the screen than with other monitors (both CRTs and other LCDs). With the EIZO CG220, the popular Adobe RGB working color spectrum is shown, including cyan tones that could not be represented before its launch. The EIZO CG220 was also the first monitor that was able to reproduce the ISO coated color spectrum contained within the Adobe RGB color spectrum.