The Service Bureau

The Service Bureau is the physical media Mecca of MCAD. Need to scan, print, trim, and bind your projects? The Service Bureau is your one-stop shop for all those needs and more.

There are a few main resources of the Service Bureau, and you will probably use them all a thousand times before you graduate. Black and white prints are free, but most of the other services will cost a small fee. They don’t take money, though, only credits, which can be purchased on a card from the Art Cellar in three amounts.

10 credits for $10
30 credits for $25
50 credits for $40

Because they don’t take money, be careful you don’t get caught without enough credits. The Service Bureau may be open late, but the Art Cellar isn’t. Since only the Art Cellar sells Service Bureau cards, be sure you have enough credits to print everything you need before committing to a late-night work session.

The Black and White Printers (SB_BW_Printers):

The grand poobah of student resources, these babies are the heart of the Service Bureau, constantly beating out prints for students. Prints are free and come in both Letter and Tabloid sizes (8.5x11 and 11x17, respectively). Whether testing layouts in print before you dish out cash for the Epsons, or just to whip out that paper for a class or creative brief for a client, the Black and White printers are easily the most-used part of the Service Bureau (and possibly even the whole college)

As is clearly marked on them, though, they are printers, NOT copiers. Abusing your privileges, such as by, say, printing 20 copies of your 130-page screenplay, is not only irresponsible, but rude, too.

When you send a print to the Black and White printers, your print request gets held in a queue. To claim your hard-earned prints, head to the Service Bureau, locate the old iMac against the wall, find your name, and release your print. To do that, select the name of your print from the queue and press the Process button. It looks like a blue gear, and can be found at the top of the screen, right by the big sign and directions that point that very fact out.

The Konica Color Printer (Konica_Color_Hold):

One of the less-used printers in the Service Bureau, the Konica is a color printer that functions similarly to the Black and Whites. When you’ve sent a print to the Konica, it gets held in a queue behind the desk. To claim your prints, ask one of the helpful and friendly Service Bureau employees to release it for you. The prints come in matte, semigloss, and glossy, and cost 1 credit for a letter-sized print, and 2 credits for a tabloid print.

One of the main reasons the Konica gets less mileage is because of its color treatment. The Konica doesn’t handle colors the greatest, and may print colors that are mildly to radically different than the ones on your laptop screen. It’s great for small test runs and less-important or less-colorful documents. In addition, it prints black and white documents beautifully, and on nice paper. If you’ve got an important document like a resume, creative brief, design document, or the like, printing them on the Konica is a good way to add a little something extra.

The Epson 4800 Printers:

The big mackdaddy printers. These are some serious pieces of printing power. If you need to print a final project for a class, these are probably the way to do it. Unlike the Konica or Black and White printers, the Epson isn’t stocked with paper. If you need to print from one of the Epsons, you’ll need to provide the paper yourself.

Don’t worry, you won’t have to pay for an entire ream to use a single sheet. Paper can be purchased from the Service Bureau.

Printing from the Epsons isn’t instantaneous. You need to sign into one of the dedicated computers hooked up to each Epson, open your file, and wait for it to process. Even then, you’re not in the clear. Prints on the Epson are high-resolution photographic-quality prints, and they take time. This means that you can’t just whip out a print before class. It’s best to do it the day before, or earlier that day, but in a pinch, you might be able to scrape by with leaving an hour for printing (say, lunch). Might. An hour is plenty of time to print, but others are probably waiting until the last minute, too, and there’s a pretty good chance some or all of the Epsons will be in use.

If you want to be sure that the Epsons are ready when YOU are ready, there are sign up books. Check out a time for the printer, and it’s yours during that timeslot. Be warned, though, if you’re not there during your time, others will probably already have swooped in and started printing.

The print protocol is a little tricky, particularly when you add in factors like color correction and paper profiles, but don’t panic. There’s a handy and helpful step-by-step guide to printing on the Epsons at every printer. Just look for the black three-ring binder.

-Spencer Ruskin