The 2011 Census Form – Design to Delivery
Have you ever wondered what’s involved in producing 2 million copies of the census form? There are a lot of steps and the whole process from design to delivery takes about a year to complete.
In the beginning.......
Prior to Census 2011, CSO undertook a public consultation on the content of the census form. As a result new and modified questions where tested in a Pilot survey of approximately 8,000 households in 2009. After analysis of the Pilot survey results the questions for inclusion in 2011 were decided.
The marvel of IT - From Word to Corel
Once the questions were decided the layout of the 2011 form had to be designed. The layout was modelled on the 2006 form. It began life as a tricky to handle Word document which was put into the expert hands of our in-house typesetting section who transformed the bland and slightly tricky Word document into a thing of beauty using Corel X3 design package. Space is always at a premium on a Census form so a lot of time went into getting the best layout possible with many changes to spacing and placement of words. After this process we had a fairly good representation of how the Census Form would look. It was then handed to the printers to prepare.
Checks, checks and some more checks
As the printing company began to prepare the Census 2011 Form, various electronic versions were passed over and back for checking before a final version was approved. Many revisions and refinements were made to ensure optimum compatibility with electronic data capture.
It’s all in the colour – varying shades of green
Traditionally the Census Form is green. But there are certainly at least 40 shades of green and all shades are not equal! Different shades and densities of colour were tested to ensure that the boxes were visible and the text legible. Since the 2002 Census, all forms are scanned and the data is automatically captured so it was also important to ensure that the colour would not interfere with the scanability of the form.
Wet-proof sign off
When the content and colour of the form had been finalised the printing company produced what are called ‘wet-proofs’. These are basically a finished version of the form which precede the beginning of the print-run.
Sample checks
In advance of the printing a detailed print quality plan was agreed. When the printing began the printing company sent us daily samples from the reels being printed. These had to be checked and any problems or issues arising dealt with speedily as the print run had begun. Checks were done on the text, layout, barcodes, and colour to see if any marks or blotches were present.
Receiving 2 million forms in CSO
Thankfully 2 million forms did not arrive in our warehouse at once! Over a 2 month period 240 pallets of boxes were delivered as they were completed by the printer. Samples of the forms were taken from each pallet and checked. All forms are printed on A4 paper and contain 12 pages with double sided print. Each form takes about 8 hours to get through the plant from start to finish but in that time about half a million pages are printed and converted into finished books. If all forms were taken and each individual page was laid side by side they would cover 476 football pitches or one third of the circumference of the World. The total weight of all the forms is just over 300 tonnes.
As Gailge, le do thoil
The Census forms were also printed in the Irish language, involving all of the same processes again based on the Irish translation of the text.
Printing of Census Forms
The Census 2011 forms include the 24-page Household form, the 4-page Individual form and the 4-page Listing form. These forms were printed in Ireland and were printed in both Irish and English.
Printing the Census 2011 forms