Cal Poly’s University Graphic Systems (UGS) is teaming up with Cal State Northridge’s Center for Visual Communication (VISCOM) to provide communication services for both universities. VISCOM is Northridge’s student-run advertising and marketing center.
Cal Poly Graphic Communications department head Harvey Levenson has been working with Northridge Provost Harold Hellenbrand for nearly a year, exploring the idea of combining the printing company and the advertising agency.
Levenson was presented with the idea last spring by Hellenbrand, who served as the dean of Cal Poly’s College of Liberal Arts for six years before leaving for Cal State Northridge in 2004. Levenson said the idea had enormous potential for both universities.
“Once the idea was put out there last spring, a team from VISCOM came to Cal Poly to check out UGS, and I think they were blown away by UGS’s potential,” Levenson said.
UGS is the only printing company in the country that produces a completely on-campus student-run daily (four days a week) newspaper, the Mustang Daily, in color.
VISCOM and UGS are both student-run companies that take on clients and give students real-world experience. But instead of printing, VISCOM focuses on designing print and Web marketing campaigns. After the team visited last year, VISCOM gave UGS a few small printing jobs to see how the company would perform. UGS general manager Jasper Casey said he felt Northridge was impressed.
“Those first jobs went really well, and then the whole relationship really came together. If everything keeps going well, VISCOM will become a regular customer for us,” Casey said. “We’re hoping to get bigger printing jobs from them in the near future and become a technical adviser for their agency.”
The VISCOM staff also has high hopes for the relationship. Dave Moon, the agency’s managing director and a Northridge art professor, said working with UGS will provide new opportunities for both schools to serve students.
“I think this relationship will help us provide more supplies like books and brochures to students at lower prices,” Moon said. “This venture combines two different systems of knowledge and research, which will help both schools give more to our students. That’s always our main goal as educators.”
The relationship will bring significant business to both school’s programs, but Levenson has bigger ideas in mind.
“Our hope is that this venture gets noticed by other California universities and UGS can team up with them as well,” Levenson said. “The partnership with VISCOM is like a flagship of the CSU system.”
UGS is already reaching out to other universities in California to evaluate their interest in a similar relationship, UGS marketing manager Tessa Libby said.
“We’ve been in contact with UC Santa Cruz and we’re planning to contact UC Merced. Once our work with Northridge becomes more public, I’m hoping that the potential of the idea will speak for itself,” Libby said.
UGS is also looking into other ways of doing business with VISCOM. VISCOM creates electronic advertisements as well as print, and Levenson said he believes this realm of advertising holds great potential for UGS’s printing power.
“We’re exploring the idea of combining our printing capabilities with VISCOM’s electronic advertisements to make what are called ‘interactive ads,’” Levenson said. “If the team at VISCOM likes the idea, their online ads could be made available by UGS for people to print. The ads could even be printed from smart phones.”
The relationship with VISCOM will bring valuable business to Cal Poly at a time when the outlook for the printing and publishing industries is less than ideal.
“The printing industry is in decline for everyone, and what you have to do to keep up is come up with new ways to solve the same old problem. I think this relationship will do just that, especially if we can expand to other campuses,” Levenson said.