How Our Planners Are Made
Today, we are excited to share a little bit about how our beautiful planners are made. From the PDF you design on our website to the finished product that arrives on your doorstep, there are so many working parts that carefully come together to bring each custom book to life. To give you a little peek at the inside workings of our printing and assembly process, we’ve pulled together a fun fact Q & A!
Where are Golden Coil planners made?
We are a U.S. based company. Each planner is produced at our print facility in Utah!
How many different people handle each planner in production from start to finish?
Approximately 10 people handle a planner from start to finish.
Are planner covers pre-produced, or printed on demand?
Both! We pre-produce all of our textured Linen and Leather covers in large quantities (allowing for a quick production time), while our Pattern and Designer covers are printed on demand.
What steps are involved in producing a Pattern/Designer cover?
After being printed, the cover is coated with a special laminate called soft-touch or velvet lamination. Then, it is sent to our foiling machine to foil the cover with our trademark ‘Golden Coil’ branding. Once foiled, the covers are cut and attached to their hard cover chipboard. The cover is then sent over to our Wire-O department, where they are hole-punched and matched up with the custom interior.
What type of printer is used for planner pages? What is the size of the printer?
The Canon Océ VarioPrint Titan Black and White Digital Press is used to print the interior of each Golden Coil planner. This high efficiency, large scale printer fills nearly a whole room in our print facility and is larger than an SUV!
What kind of paper is used in Golden Coil planners?
Our planners use 80# Mohawk paper. The quality of our paper is above all others on the planner market. The thickness of the paper lends itself to less shadowing and bleed through from writing, and the slightly toothed finish of the paper helps ink hold more efficiently.
What kinds of climate control are necessary during production?
The printing machine is required to have 40% - 50% humidity, with a dry, consistent climate to ensure top notch paper condition.
What methods are used to cut the paper with crisp, clean lines?
We use a Guillotine Flat Knife cutting machine that requires clean and sharp blades.
What technologies are used for quality printing?
We employ several different technologies to ensure quality printing in each Golden Coil book: HD Printing on our presses, color checkers on each press, QA Checkers on all of our machines, and Barcode Matching throughout our production floor.
How are Golden Coil planners bound?
We use double wire-o binding, allowing each book to fold over and lay flat while writing. To optimize user experience, we also offer 4 different coil sizes, which are assigned to each planner according to page count. Each book is bound by hand, which accounts for some minor variation in shape from coil to coil.
What kinds of quality checks are performed on each planner before it is packaged?
Each Golden Coil product is QA’d within each department after each process. Covers are QA’d in our case binding department for any imperfections, and once the book is completed in our Wire-O department, the product is QA’d as a whole. Once it is sent to packaging, the packaging department is in charge of catching any outstanding issues.
A huge thank you to our print team for the care they put into printing, assembling, binding, and packaging each Golden Coil product! We hope you enjoyed this insider’s look at what it takes to create your planners.