Picture the scene. It’s the buildup to the university’s biggest football game of the season.
The student committee is fired up. They’ve launched a full-blown spirit campaign—flyers to boost turnout, stadium banners to rally support, and signs across campus to stir emotions.
The aim? Turn out the crowds and create a game day atmosphere to remember.
But instead of building momentum, they’re facing delays, errors, and confusion—all caused by outdated print processes.
The Student Struggles: Low Resolution, High Frustration
Maria, a marketing student leading the campaign, submits a flyer request via email, attaching her Canva design. She assumes it’s a quick approval.
Instead, two days later she receives an email from the print department:
“This file doesn’t meet print specifications. Please resubmit using a higher resolution image.”
The problem? Maria can only find an outdated logo at the correct resolution. She’s facing a dilemma:
Either print the flyers with an outdated team logo, use an image that will look awful once it’s printed, or redesign the flyer—which she doesn’t really have time for.
Is the must-win game lost before it’s even begun?
The Faculty Frustration: Time Pressure Leads to Typos
Meanwhile, Dr. Lewis, the faculty advisor for the spirit committee, submits a request to print professional signage for the game. After spending a good half hour finding the right template and another few hours perfecting the design, he submits the job.
A nervous few days pass, with Dr. Lewis sending several chasing emails that go unanswered.
Twenty-four hours before kick-off, the signs finally arrive, and Dr. Lewis celebrates like he’s won the Super Bowl. However, once they are unpacked, his heart drops—defeat is snatched from the jaws of victory.
Dr. Lewis realizes he’s ordered 1,000 signs rallying support for “The Panters,” not the all-conquering “Panthers.”
The Print Department Bottleneck: Too Many Variations and a Disjointed Workflow
Meanwhile, the print shop is overwhelmed. Five students submitted five different flyer designs—none aligned with brand standards (varying fonts, incorrect color schemes, all the classic issues).
The team spends hours going back and forth: correcting artwork, flagging issues, chasing approvals—while being forced to ignore the constantly ringing phone and overflowing inbox.
So it’s no surprise that amid the chaos, and the sudden increase in demand, Dr. Lewis’s typo slipped through the net. But this typo could have serious consequences.
Not only is the university’s reputation at stake on the highest-profile day of the year, but these are wasted funds the university simply cannot afford.
Why Web-to-Print Works in Higher Education
These scenarios are far from unique. With a complex range of student events, faculty projects, and cross-department collaboration, manual workflows, outdated templates, and inconsistent branding all lead to lost time, lost budget—and lost impact.
Which is why so many universities are embracing web-to-print.
Web-to-print transforms the user experience by offering:
- Cloud-based storefronts, accessible to students and staff anytime, from anywhere
- Role-based permissions, so each user sees only what’s relevant
- Pre-approved templates, protecting brand integrity across every department
- Real-time tracking and automated workflows, eliminating the back-and-forth
Smarter Print Management = Less Waste, More Visibility
In Maria’s original scenario, wasted banners and last-minute reprints eat into already stretched budgets.
Web-to-print changes that.
With built-in integrations to leading MIS providers, administrators can:
- Track print volumes by department (e.g., student groups vs. faculty)
- Identify opportunities for cost savings
- Align print activity with sustainability goals
- Encourage smarter, more mindful printing habits campus-wide
B2B-Style Portals for the Modern Campus
A web-to-print storefront works like a B2B portal—branded, customizable, and role-specific. Marketing teams can lock in assets. Finance teams can control spend. IT teams can monitor usage. And student organizations like Maria’s can order confidently, knowing they’re using the right materials every time.
It’s flexible enough to support multiple departments or campuses, but centralized enough to bring everything under one roof.
Expanding Beyond Campus: Serving the Local Community
Universities aren’t just serving students and faculty anymore. Increasingly, print departments are discovering new opportunities by extending their services to the wider community through customer-facing web-to-print portals. These portals provide a slick, self-service experience where external users—such as local businesses, charities, alumni, and schools—can upload artwork, run it through automated preflight checks that flag issues with resolution, color, bleed, or fonts, and approve proofs with clear lead times and convenient collection or shipping options. This streamlined artwork acceptance process ensures files are production-ready before they reach the print team, reducing errors and saving valuable time.
The benefits are wide-ranging. Local businesses and startups can quickly order posters, menus, or packaging mockups. Charities and community groups can produce fundraising materials and event signage with confidence. Alumni gain access to branded merchandise, photo books, and gifts, while schools, clubs, and societies can easily commission banners and flyers for seasonal events.
For universities, the value is twofold: new revenue streams that help print departments grow and become self-sustaining, and stronger community engagement that enhances the institution’s reputation beyond the campus walls. In practice, this might mean a local sports club ordering branded posters, a charity producing its annual fundraising flyers, or an alumni network purchasing merchandise—all handled seamlessly through the same customer-facing portal that powers on-campus campaigns. Over time, this creates the foundation for print departments to expand further beyond campus, positioning them as regional service providers that not only meet internal demand but also contribute to the wider community.
Success Story: Arizona State University – A Model of Modern Print Operations
ASU’s Print & Imaging Lab is a standout example of transformation. Before adopting Infigo’s web-to-print platform, the lab managed over 1,200 templates, many of which were outdated or redundant, leaving staff and students accidentally using branding that no longer aligned with university standards.
Taking control of this complexity, ASU condensed those thousands of templates down to just 200 intelligently designed, JavaScript-powered templates, streamlining workflows without sacrificing flexibility.
Even business cards saw a dramatic simplification—from 120+ variations to just five highly consistent formats.
This overhaul didn’t just enhance efficiency—it cut the average order fulfillment time in half, allowing both print staff and users to move faster and with fewer errors.
Moreover, the lab pivoted from being a cost center to becoming self-funding, thanks to new revenue streams powered by the platform. Students, faculty, staff, and alumni can now order dye-sublimation merchandise—like custom luggage tags, mugs, and photo books—directly through the portal.
This expanded catalog of offerings created opportunities previously out of reach.
ASU’s team emphasized that the exceptional support they received from Infigo was critical to success—enabling fast template development, seamless workflow design, and robust adoption across stakeholders.
“Their customer service is out of this world,” said Chris Myers, ASU Print & Imaging Lab director.
Chris Halkovic, Digital Workflow & Print Manager, added:
“Our switch to Infigo has been the best business decision we’ve made. The software continues to evolve day after day and stay ahead of the trend.”
In short, ASU’s web-to-print adoption didn’t just solve problems—it redefined what the campus print lab could be: fast, accurate, brand-safe, revenue-generating, and supported by industry-leading service.
For a campaign like Maria’s? She’d be working from one clear flyer template, with editable fields for time, date, and messaging—nothing more.
For signage like Dr. Lewis’s? Branding would be locked in and typos would be highlighted. No guesswork. No costly mistakes.
Generating Revenue, Not Just Materials
In ASU’s case, the web-to-print lab became more than a support function—it became a self-funding revenue stream through:
- Custom-branded merchandise for student events and alumni
- On-demand print services for faculty-led publications
- Self-service tools that empower student groups and reduce admin overhead
- Community-facing portals that accept, preflight, and fulfill external orders efficiently
Maria’s campaign? Could have included custom mugs, rally towels, or photo books—ordered directly through the portal, with profits reinvested back into student services.
Built for the Modern Campus: Mobile, Secure, Scalable
Students work from phones. Staff collaborate remotely. Campaigns move fast.
The leading web-to-print platforms support this environment with:
- Cloud hosting for secure off-prem access
- Mobile-responsive interfaces for ordering on the go
- Scalability to support growing campuses and satellite sites
- Real-time analytics dashboards for visibility into print activity
Is Web-to-Print Right for Your Institution?
Ask yourself:
- Are students struggling to find or follow print guidelines?
- Are faculty working with outdated forms or assets?
- Is your print team buried in emails, revisions, and reprints?
- Would you benefit from a central, scalable portal that’s secure and easy to use?
If the answer is yes—you’re ready to unlock real value with web-to-print.
The Final Whistle: Web-to-Print for the Win
With a web-to-print platform in place:
Maria gets her flyers out with the correct branding
Maria could log into a student-friendly storefront with 24/7 access and role-based permissions. She’d see only the approved flyer templates relevant to student campaigns—already aligned with university branding.
She could personalize the message, hit “print,” and move on—all without needing help from the print shop.
Dr. Lewis gets signage that doesn’t impact the university’s reputation
With dynamic templates and SSO-enabled access, Dr. Lewis would see faculty-specific options already aligned with the latest branding and spell check. He’d place the order through a secure portal, receive instant confirmation, and track its progress—without a single email thread or rejected form.
The print department delivers with speed, accuracy, and confidence
A centralised web-to-print system would let the print team lock down brand elements through dynamic templates, removing the risk of off-brand designs. Orders would flow in with correct formatting, approvals built-in, and consistent output—so the team can focus on fulfillment, not firefighting.
No delays. No waste. No last-minute chaos.
Just a unified, consistent campaign that brings the whole campus together—on matchday and beyond.
To discover how web-to-print could help your University significantly reduce print costs and wastage and optimize funds, request a call back from one of our workflow experts.
