Panini America Behind the Scenes Video: A Fascinating Tour of the Prepress Process

May 06, 2011

Spoiler alert: There’s no design studio behind the two elaborate wooden doors clearly labeled “Design Studio” just to your right as you enter Panini America HQ.

Tucked past those doors instead — stealthily, strategically — is a dimly lit lair perpetually humming with a mesmerizingly quiet buzz. Indeed, take a stroll through the Panini America Prepress Department and you’ll likely find it to be a simply magical experience.

To be sure, the Panini America prepress folks are among the company’s true unsung heroes, men and women who work wonders behind the scenes on everything from photo editing and selection to color correcting to clipping paths to image sizing and placement. And most of what they do, they do on every . . . single . . . card file we produce.

Think about that for a second.

Seemingly everywhere you look in the dark-by-design studio, there’s something wow-worthy going on — every one a  critical step in the card-building process that most collectors probably rarely, if ever, consider. Many of those steps are chronicled, for the first time, in this exclusive behind-the-scenes video:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUQMKtrlqaI&w=565&h=454]