Project requests for the Print Shop and Graphics Center

Following the retirement of Ken Donovan, Al Betancourt has been running the HFC Print Shop. You may reach Al at graphics@hfcc.edu.

We have changed our services. Some important updates:

1. Free services are sometimes expensive: For many years, our graphics and print shop have provided free printing, production, and delivery services to pretty much everyone on campus. These services were never really free: the Graphics Center funded them. As our costs have gone up and our staff has remained small, we have had to become more efficient, to focus on College priorities and our accountability to the College.
   
   While we will still provide many free services for the foreseeable future, we need to evaluate our business model to become more sustainable.
2. We can no longer print everything we are asked to print. We will place our top priority on projects that directly support student recruitment, student retention, and student success.
   For the most part, we will no longer be able to print pieces that did not originate through our designers. We will no longer be able to print department newsletters or similar internally-focused pieces. We understand these projects are important to your department. But we need to focus our resources on projects directly aligned with our department's core priorities and accountability for student recruitment and retention.
   On a limited basis, we might be able to print certain internally-focused pieces, if you are able to pay for time and materials. We recommend you consider alternatives to print, in these cases.
3. We need your help with efficiency. As we evaluate our business model, we need everyone to carefully evaluate your requests. Please only ask us to produce as many pieces as you will actually use. There has been a **lot** of waste over the years, as thousands of print pieces were thrown away or recycled because there was no cost to departments, no matter the size of the project. For many years, we spent countless overtime hours producing projects that were not needed. And we paid twice for these projects -- the cost to produce them, and the extended labor costs for overtime. Now we are asking for your assistance to make sure our time and materials are spent only on truly needed, strategic projects and print quantities.
4. Planning ahead helps everyone. Even if your project *does* align with our normal priorities, we might not be able to complete it if it comes to us during a busy time on a tight timeline. Please, give us at least two weeks, or even more, for complex projects. We need a week for simpler print requests.

A complete list of our services and a more detailed look at our priorities and timelines is on our website.

General questions about Graphics Center and Print Shop operations should go to Rhonda DeLong, rdelong@hfcc.edu.