After nearly 8 months of brainstorming, research, design, presentations, photography, typesetting, proofreading, color-correcting, retouching, printing, folding, scoring and binding, The Progressive Corporation 2012 Annual Report is now ready to be shipped off to the shareholders. Most people will never know what goes into making a book, so here are a few behind-the scenes pictures I took of the final phase in our production process, perfect binding. After 21 years of hanging out at the bindery, I’m still mesmerized by the automation process. The equipment is kind of like something from the mind of Rube Goldberg — a super complex series of high-tech contraptions all connected together with what seems like miles of winding conveyor belts. It’s all synchronized perfectly and the people working at each station move and stack so efficiently to the rhythm of the repetitive, overlapping sounds — like some kind of weird industrial music that gets stuck in your head for hours after you leave the plant.
Special thanks to Brian Zak at AGS Custom Graphics, Ron Myers at Steffen Bookbinders and their talented teams who always go above and beyond to make our books top-notch!
