4th November 2025
Shine offers prizes nobody else can
Standing out. Showing raw talent. Making an impact. The most talented students achieve this by hard work. Some manage to get ahead, but we know it’s far from given that they’ll find the career they deserve.
The purpose of the Shine School Media Awards is to offer brilliant teenagers one more step on the ladder to success. We’re agnostic to the origin of this talent: our goal is to offer recognition and opportunity.
This week I want to tell you about Freddie, who won our ‘best design’ award for his school magazine, ‘The Eagle’. His prize included a work experience day at one of the country’s leading commercial printers, Pureprint Group.
Here’s what he told us about the experience:
My visit to Pureprint opened my eyes to the creative and technical process behind a finished piece of print – anything from posters programmes or papers – that we take for granted. The experience built upon my work as lead graphic designer and assistant editor for The Eagle, my school politics magazine.
The day began by shadowing the team who work closely with a designer and their client to sculpt an achievable outcome that meets their combined vision. I then observed the various integral steps the work takes to reach the factory floor. Pureprint kindly structured the day so that I could follow my design work as an example of how a project turns from a visual idea into a physical outcome. Observing the intricate, carefully crafted routes a job takes before reaching its destination of being shipped in quantities from the factory gave me an understanding of the process that is required for print to reach a consumer.
I learned how different expertise across the team combines to prepare both lithographic and digital prints. It was fascinating to see how everything works in harmony: inks are mixed and plates are prepared, then pages are cut and bound through a variety of elaborate methods that produce one cohesive product. The teamwork involved felt like a metaphor: just as a cover supports a book’s pages and the words we read, the structure required to produce such skilled creative outcomes is one built of support and collaboration. As a result, as the day progressed I began to understand that in media, no one element thrives without another.
Being immersed within the print process for a day led to a new appreciation and understanding of Pureprint’s impressive logistical management, communication and collective decision making, as well as the scope for creativity at every stage. The process inherently lends itself to creating a motivated, vibrant working atmosphere that never truly rests.
A great example of this collaboration that particularly stuck with me was the preprints work during Wimbledon. I saw how daily programmes were prepared and printed for each new round of the tournament, perfecting the cut and colour through the night so the new up-to-date edition could be enjoyed at the event the next morning.
Each piece of work produced is executed like a performance, completed with the knowledge that when presented with the unexpected the team must adapt quickly and creatively to keep the process running.The visit to Pureprint opened my eyes to the societal service that design and media provides. The work done on a day-to-day basis at companies like Pureprint make them the lifesavers of our visual realm.
I left my experience both as a winner of a Shine School Media Award and being fortunate to have had the life experience of a day with Pureprint, excited by a new, wider understanding of the deeply important, wide reach of design and print as well as all the fascinating skills that come with it.
Entering the Shine Awards offers students a chance to win unique experiences that could shape their future career. As Freddie has shown, it sometimes shapes an understanding of the professional world beyond school.
I’d like to personally thank the team at Pureprint, particularly Neil Young, for setting this up for Freddie and offering him this outstanding opportunity.
Best wishes
Richard Chapman
Chair of Shine