Russell Crowe Style Journal in The Wall Street Journal Europe

Friday the 13th

Again our quarterly glossy magazine, Style Journal, had to be inserted in The Wall Street Journal Europe newspaper. My team was dispersed over Europe to follow up on the nightly operations. It is a complex set up because the magazine is printed centrally in 1 printplant (in Belgium, Antwerp!). From there the magazines are shipped to our 10 printplants (all over Europe and Middle East) to be inserted. Leaving from the 10 printplants the copies finally will end up in 75 countries.

I was following the ops in the German printplant. A fantastic experience because the energy of hundreds of people comes together in one timeslot from 11PM till 2 AM. On top of that, our German printplant is in hands of an extremely professional Turkish Media Group. Although it is a modern sophisticated German company based in Frankfurt, the operation is 100 % Turkish. With their continuous investments in new machines and technology they almost always find a solution to our increasingly complex requests.

I am glad to say that in none of the 10 printplants a Friday the 13th scenario unraveled.