Frequently asked questions

We have a wide range of services available for students to support academic and extra-curricular activity.

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We have a wide range of services available to support staff in teaching and research activities.

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We have a wdie range of services availbe for campus partners including self-service and managed options.

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We have a number of services that off campus customers can use and this list is constantly growing as our capabilities change

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Staff and students can either use the Campus Printing service or you can upload .pdf files to the Online Shop.

This is accessible through the VPN only

Not everything you need will be possible through the Online Shop or on a Campus Printer. But we can still help.

Our Account Management team can meet to discuss your requirements and advise you on the most cost-effective way to produce your job. They will establish a specification and once agreed, they will organise a quotation for you. Once this quotation is approved, we schedule the work into production.

This team work across the broader Creative and Print Services bringing together design, print, video, photography, and web. They can not only provide print support but bring together the whole piece to develop with you a complete suite of materials piece that address the messaging and collateral you need.

Get in touch to start your conversation.

A6

105mm x 148mm

A5

148mm x 210mm

A4

210mm x 297mm

A3

297mm x 420mm

A2

420mm x 594mm

A1

594mm x 841mm

A0

841mm x 1189mm

This is when the printed area extends out of the trimmed area. To achieve this, printers print a larger area than is required on oversized paper and then trim the paper down to the required finished size.

The Mailroom provides a collection and delivery service for school and department external and internal mail to the Loughborough campus.

Departmental mail is delivered and collected from around the university daily. All Royal Mail and Parcelforce post for university staff is delivered to the Mailroom and then sorted and delivered by our team of drivers.

All student parcel deliveries to campus are made to our facility in the Herbert Manzoni Building. We log and store your parcels until you can collect at a time convenient to you. Click on the link below to find out more.

Campus partners can contact us to arrange post services within our schedules and available services.

For personal mail we offer limited services from our counter in the Herbert Manzoni Building. Stamps can be purchased over the counter and a mail and parcel delivery service up to 30kg is provided via Royal Mail, DHL, or Parcelforce.

We offer time saving, cost effective mailing solutions that deliver highly professional results. Our services include mail merging, photocopying, collating and stuffing envelopes as well as printing envelopes. Get in touch to discuss your requirements.

For more information click HERE

Unfortunately, as we are not a Royal Mail Post Office we cannot provide any proof of postage receipts. We would strongly recommend using signed for or tracked services for valuable items.

Please contact one of our account handlers, Lynne Atkin or Matt Cawrey, who can discuss your requirements and advise you on the most cost effective way to produce your job. They will establish a design specification and once agreed, they will organise a quotation for you. Once this quotation is approved, we schedule the work into production.

Please send any text via email, preferably as a Microsoft Word document. Please make sure this text is as accurate as possible to reduce proofing stages and to keep costs to a minimum. We can also accept content via Dropbox, Google Drive, WeTransfer or other similar services.

You can source existing University photography online via ImageBank. Alternatively, you can contact our photographer who has access to additional photographs. He can also talk to you about taking bespoke images to suit your needs. 

We do recognise at times that we won’t have certain images to meet your requirements. In this case, we will use our preferred stock image provider, Fotolia. Feel free to browse the Fotolia website and choose some suitable imagery. You can then supply us with the image references and we can obtain free, lo-res versions to use in concept designs. Once the concept design has been agreed, we can purchase the hi-res image for the final artwork at a cost of £1.44 per credit.*

If you require a diagram, illustration or infographic, the design studio can create this for you.

* cost is subject to change.

JPG, TIF or EPS files are usually the best for our designers to work with in either RGB or CMYK. We need files as high resolution electronic files and request they are 300 dots per inch (DPI) at the size you expect to use them.

When saving images, always select the highest quality and turn off any compression before saving. Please do not embed the images into Microsoft Word documents as this reduces their quality.

A guide to producing data for personalised print (May 2024) 

Overview 

This guide is intended for those working with the Brand, Digital and Creative Production (BDCP) team at Loughborough University on personalised print production, and mailing campaigns.  

For example these include items such as postcards, certificates, name badges. In the past data has been a key part of the design and distribution of the Open Day pre-visit postcards and Results Day Golden Ticket.  

Accurate data is crucial for products to be produced and the campaign to be effective. Incorrect data can be embarrassing to the institution, look unprofessional or could mean the item not reaching the intended recipient.  

Things to consider

When providing a spreadsheet of data to be merged the following considerations help ensure accurate and effective results:

File format 

Please supply data as CSV (Comma delimited) (*.csv) files containing a single sheet only. Additional sheets of data will need to be provided as separate documents and named clearly for easy identification. 

Please note that the data file supplied will be deemed as final and correct for production.  

Column headers / field mapping

Give clear headings to each column in the spreadsheet as we will use this to match to the placeholders in the data merge artwork document. This ensures that the correct data is pulled into the appropriate sections during the data merge. For example, first name, last name.  

It gives us far more flexibility if you provide title, first name and surname as individual columns of data. 

Remove any filters or hidden columns so data is not included in error. 

Formatting

Maintain consistent formatting for names, addresses, and any other information to ensure a professional and polished appearance in the printed documents.  

Make sure your spreadsheet uses tables and includes a header column. This can be seen in the template here 

Data entry validation

Implement validation checks during data entry to catch errors in real-time and ensure that only valid information is included in the data merge.  

Line breaks

Remove line breaks from content as only the first line of multi-line content will import. This is often an issue from content that is copied and pasted into spreadsheet cells. 

Data accuracy

Before sharing for production, verify the accuracy of names, addresses, and other personal information to avoid printing errors  
and ensure that each recipient receives the intended communication.  

Check for and highlight use of special characters such as umlauts  
and accents. Sometimes these are substituted with random characters mid-word.

Remove duplicates

Eliminate duplicate records to prevent the generation of redundant documents and to maintain a streamlined and organised mailing list. This also reduces print and postage costs.  

Delete any blank columns or rows.

Data completeness

Ensure that all necessary fields required for mail merging are included, such as titles and preferred names for each recipient.   

Version control

Maintain version control via incremental file naming (e.g. V1, V2 etc.) to track changes made to the spreadsheet as you carry out the checks outlined above. This will help ensure that the correct version of the data is shared with BDCP for data merge 

Data security

Safeguard sensitive information, such as personal addresses, by restricting access permissions and password protecting the spreadsheet to maintain privacy and compliance.  

To ensure compliance with GDPR guidelines, data should never be shared on email and instead a OneDrive link should be used.  

Remove data that is not needed, for example, if only the first name is needed do not supply email address, telephone number etc.  

Deadlines

A mail merge job requires accurate data in advance of any design or production work commencing. Where data is delayed the design, production and delivery turnaround will need shift to accommodate this. 

Contact information

Please provide us with two contacts when sharing the data so queries can be resolved where there are cases of annual leave or sickness. 

A ‘good data’ template is available for download here. 

By focusing on the above, you are helping to support a quicker design and print production process. You will also enhance the accuracy and professionalism of your printed materials generated through mail merging. This advice will help in ensuring that each recipient receives error-free communications from Loughborough University. 

If you have any questions or feedback please contact visual.identity@lboro.ac.uk 

This usually depends upon the size and complexity of the job. Once a quote is accepted, design usually takes up to five workings days for first proof stage. You are responsible for proofing work so you must pass proofs back quickly to avoid delays.

Please contact one of our account handlers, Lynne Atkin or Matt Cawrey, who will discuss with you how to coordinate all of your marketing material. They will discuss initial publicity to final event items to ensure you have a professional, consistent look and feel to the event.