Back to Main Menu

Printing Services

Your full-service printer and sign shop

Printing Services is dedicated to meeting the printing needs of the faculty, staff, students, departments, and campus organizations at CMU. In addition, our services are available to the surrounding community, including personal, non-profit and business needs. As a member of the CMU community, we help support the educational mission of the university, both on- and off-campus.

Printing Services and the former Facilities Management Sign Shop have merged under Auxiliary Services and offer the services listed below.

Services

Print

  • Business Cards
  • Letterhead
  • Envelopes
  • Brochures
  • Invitations
  • Tickets
  • Variable data printing
  • Booklets and catalogs
  • Flyers
  • Folders
  • Rack Cards
  • Door Hangers
  • Folded Cards
  • Carbon copy forms
  • Post Cards and Mailings
  • Promotional Products

Engraving

  • Nametags
  • Name slides
  • Nameplates
  • Promotional products
  • Plaques 
  • Awards
  • Gifts

Signs and graphics

  • Window graphics
  • Flat panels
  • Routered/dimensional 
  • Fleet graphics
  • Donor plaques
  • Banners
  • Vinyl decals
  • ADA signs (room number signs) 
  • Parking signage
  • Way-finding signage
  • Event signage
  • Exterior building signage
  • Safety signage

Promotional products and tradeshow displays

  • Pens
  • Cups
  • Mousepads
  • USBs
  • Bags
  • T-shirts
  • Tabletop banners
  • Table clothes
  • Tents

Consulting and installation

  • Project consulting
  • Signage installation
  • Field measuring

Way-finding signage

  • Design and set-up
  • Sign rental
  • Installation and placement
  • Removal

Ordering process

For on-campus clients

On-Campus Order Form

After the On-Campus Order Form has been submitted, please email your files (including fonts and graphics) to print@cmich.edu.

For off-campus clients

If ordering from an off-campus location, please email the following information to print@cmich.edu: 

  • Attached PDF of the document (including bleeds, if needed)
  • Contact information
  • Delivery instructions (mail/pickup)
  • Description of request
  • Dimensions of completed print
  • Due date
  • Preferred type of paper
NOTE: Some jobs may require Printing Services to provide physical proofs for the customer to approve prior to printing.

Helpful hints

Printing tips

    4-color process is a printing method that uses a combination of 4 different color inks: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, often referred to as CMYK. The combination of CMYK produces full-color images in print. 4-color process is the most common print method for achieving color.

    Spot colors are pure or mixed inks that are printed individually. Each spot color is printed as a solid color and not a combination of CMYK. Spot colors can achieve a wider range and more accurate colors than CMYK and can be used only in offset printing. Printing Services uses the Pantone Matching System for spot colors.

    These numbers that you may see in your quote from Printing Services refer to the number of ink colors on the front/back sides of your print. For example, 4/0 means there will be 4 colors (CMYK) used on the front side and no colors used on the back side.

    Flat size refers to the dimensions of a document after it has been printed and received any necessary trimming, but before any operations that further affect its size, such as folding.

    Finished size refers to the dimensions of a printed document in its final form. Sizes should always be written as width × height.

    Bleeds are the edges of the artwork that will be trimmed after a job is printed. Printers cannot print all the way to the edge of a sheet. So if your design runs off the edge of the page, you will need to set up your file with bleeds. We recommends a bleed area of 1/8" (0.125 inches).

    Crop marks are the little tick marks used to indicate where to trim a print down to its finished size. Crop marks are often set up with bleeds.

    When printing black ink on a large area, it is best to use a rich black v. 100% K. A rich black is a combination of CMYK that produces a darker, more true black color than just 100% K alone. An example of a rich black formula is C:60 M:40 Y:40 K:100.

    Types of binding

      Folded sheets are gathered together one inside the other and then stapled through the fold line with wire staples.

      Booklets are bound by wire staples going through the side of the sheets from the front to the back, near the spine.

      The pages and cover are glued together at the spine with a strong yet flexible thermal glue. The other three sides of the book are then trimmed as needed to give them clean “perfect” edges.

      Pages are bound with a wire or plastic spiral threaded through a row of holes along one edge.

      Wire loops are inserted through a row of holes along one edge of the book’s cover and pages. The loops are then crimped closer together until they form a perfect circle, securing the cover and pages and allowing them to open freely.

      Types of paper

        Coated paper is coated with another agent that helps to fill in the tiny spaces between fibers, creating a more uniform surface. Coated paper can range from glossy to matte finishes.

        Uncoated paper is not coated with another agent and comes in a wide variety of textures and finishes.