After months of speculation, the identities have finally been revealed of Royal Mail’s six secret regional printers responsible for producing tens of thousands of sheets of 29 Olympic and 34 Paralympic Gold Medal special edition stamps bearing images of gold medal-winning British athletes for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

It is two months since the closing ceremony drew a line under a global sporting event that no one expected to spark such an explosion of enthusiasm in the British public, and which saw British athletes outstrip expectations and scoop medal after medal.

But it was two years ago that Royal Mail began planning its London 2012 Gold Medal Stamps programme, a massively complex logistical process that saw it select a network of printers, couriers, designers, painters and other suppliers across England and Scotland.

For Wimbledon-based Aquatint BSC, the regional printer for London and the South East, the initial enquiry from St Ives account director Dan Hall two years ago was for a small quote for 83 Post Offices to be supplied with 50 sheets of paper, with no reference to the Olympics.

"We gave a price and didn’t think more of it," says Aquatint sales and marketing director Jane Kelly. Six months later, the firm was contacted again. It was told that the project was for the London 2012 Olympics, with the promise that "if you can prove through a testing process that you do the job, then we’ll select you as the printer for the southern region".

A rigorous live testing process involving all the printers then proceeded, with colour-testing and the production of PDF and digital proofs. Patrick Crouch, the managing director of Swindon-based Acorn Press, says: "We probably did at least six artwork checks and four actual physical runs materials and all issues were ironed out over that period."

Security was also an issue, with each of the printers having to be vetted.

"It had to be kept pretty quiet," says Breckland Print general manager David Medler, "not least because of security reasons. Because we are not a traditional security printer, Royal Mail checked the security of the building."

Andy Matthews, managing director and co-founder of Solihull’s Crescent Press, adds: "Essentially, we were printing money. The stamps retail at 60p each, so we had hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of them on the premises. Either myself or sales director Graeme Thurman had to be on site throughout to ensure maximum security, as all waste products related to the project had to be locked away before being collected by Royal Mail and disposed of."

But while Royal Mail’s supplier roster could be primed for the Games themselves, of course production itself could not kick off until those moments when Team GB started winning golds, at which point there was just 24 hours to design, print, distribute and get the stamps on the shelves of more than 500 Post Offices.

Martyn Fry, Royal Mail’s head of production for stamps and collectibles, points out that with a normal lead time for a special edition stamp of 18 months, the notion of a 12-24-hour lead-time meant that meticulous planning was crucial.

The litho base sheet printing was carried out by Walsall Security Printers, while all print management was overseen by St Ives Management Services. Each stamp would feature Queen Elizabeth II’s head, the London 2012 logo and a gold medal winner, with the sheets overlaid with a protective phosphor sheet. The border of each miniature sheet was pre-printed with the Team GB brand and the words ‘London 2012 Olympic Games’.

Action stations
As soon as a British Olympian won a gold medal, it was action stations at Royal Mail. The race was on to design, approve, print and distribute the stamps, so that they would be ready to hit the shelves of 500 Post Office branches by lunchtime the following day.

Royal Mail’s team of in-house designers, supported by Manchester design agency True North, would receive a selection of action shots from official Olympic photo agency Getty Images. The team would have about an hour to review the images and design the stamp. The best image was selected by the designers, edited and positioned within a templated design of the six-stamp miniature. The name of the winning athlete and the event were added to each stamp and the name, date and venue were added to each sheet.

The designs then needed to get the green light from various approvers, including with Olympics organising body LOCOG, before they was sent digitally via secure FTP to Royal Mail’s six regional printers, dotted at strategic locations across the country.

The printers had around 20 minutes to produce a mock-up, using four plates to print sheets of stamps for each gold medallist, with each sheet comprising 96 stamps. Press sheets of four stamps were also produced.

Each of the regional printers overprinted the image and inscriptions onto the base sheets. The finished miniature sheets were then collected by a fleet of 90 Royal Mail vehicles, helped by A to Z Couriers, for distribution to thousands of staff across 500 Post Offices by noon the following day, including on Sundays.

For consumers, the stamps were available in self-adhesive miniature sheets of six, priced at £3.60. Each of the six printers were referenced by a location printed on the bottom left hand corner of each stamp.

Clearly, the biggest challenge for Royal Mail and its print roster alike would arise when multiple gold medals were won by Team GB. Hence ‘Super Saturday’, when Britain triumphed with a 104-year record-breaking six golds, presented all and sundry with the biggest challenge.

"If a win came in during normal weekly production, we dropped everything and freed the required assets up," says Medler. "Out of hours, we dedicated a ‘flying squad’ crew who were monitoring for wins and came running back to the factory. This made Super Saturday even more exciting for us. We have a great team who work together and delivered."

Printers often had to work through the night to produce the stamps, which were collected by Royal Mail staff at 6.30am the next morning.

"Before the Olympics, Royal Mail had never issued stamps on a Sunday before, let alone issued six in one day," Fry says. "So it has been a record-breaking achievement in many ways."

But the stamps did not just feature as something for consumers to collect, or stick onto envelopes. They became emblems of the Games, and Royal Mail’s involvement.

Gold-winning athletes were presented with specially created enlargements of the stamps to commemorate their victories. These were produced by a round-the-clock team from Indusfoto in London, Loxley Colour in Glasgow and Freshwater UK in Cardiff. Indusfoto also produced enlargements that were held high during the Team GB and Paralympics GB victory parade in London.

A sense of victory is patently the dominant feeling among the six printers involved in the project. And their hard work has been recognised by Royal Mail. The group’s managing director of stamps and collectibles, Andrew Hammond has been spending the last couple of weeks visiting the six printers and thanking them for their involvement.

• Six regional printers were selected by Royal Mail to produce commemorative stamps for each Team GB gold medal winner
• The project saw the ‘Secret Six’ print millions of stamps on B2 sheets for the 29 Olympics gold medallists
• Royal Mail also printed stamps for individual gold medallists at the Paralympics, following an outcry on social media surrounding its plans to honour Paralympians with a single sheet at the end of the Games. These were available in retail within five days of a win
• As soon as a British Olympian won a gold medal, Royal Mail kicked off the process to design, approve, print and distribute the stamps so that they would be ready to hit the shelves of 500 Post Office branches by lunchtime the following day
• Andrew Hammond, Royal Mail’s managing director of stamps and collectibles, this month visited each of the six printers to thank them in person
• London 2012 Olympic Games Gold Medal Stamps are available to buy until 31 December via Royal Mail’s website

READER REACTION

What challenges did your company face in producing the gold medal stamps?

Alan Walker
Joint managing director, Allander Print Unlimited
Allander’s print runs were some of the largest of all the regional sites, due to us covering Scotland and Northern Ireland distribution. We delivered 100% to deadline without suffering any broken marriages! The famous six-golds Saturday presented the biggest challenge of all. We had a few special requirements, but generally we had to print, per win, 13,000 B2 sheets for the Olympics and 6,000 sheets for the Paralympics, all required within two hours of file approval."

Patrick Crouch
Managing director, Acorn Press
The main challenges included overcoming the disappointment on the first weekend of the Games, when we didn’t win any medals. But once we were into the swing of it, it was achieving what we set out to do. Because we’d set ourselves up so well and because of all the planning, it went very smoothly. One thing the experience did do was pull people together very closely. In terms of the spirit of the Games, it was transferred to us; we felt that we were part of the event."

David Medler
General manager, Breckland Print (part of Colchester Print Group)
The project was tough in that it was multidimensional. No one knew how many gold medal wins there would be, so volume was unknown. Quality had to be a given, as the Royal Mail brand was at stake and turnaround time was a no-fail because they had to be on sale next day. Further to this the schedule was one with no start point. It was on a time-elapsed basis, as a medal could effectively be won at any point. How do you deploy assets and people on that basis? This made the project both exciting and a challenge to deliver. After exhaustive testing, we knew we could technically deliver and then it became about people."

Jane Kelly
Sales and marketing director, Aquatint BSC
On the night that Team GB won six golds, we had the family of staff who had been vetted coming in to help. Security was an issue – a year into the project we had to be vetted because we were going to be printing millions of pounds worth of stamps. The base stock was kept in a secure building, which had to have special locks fitted. Staff were excited and knackered after the Olympics and then we had the Paralympics. Because staff who had to cancel all holidays booked during the Olympics went on their holidays after the main Games we had to train another team for the Paralympics."

Andy Matthews
Managing director, Crescent Press
The biggest challenge by far was the tight turnaround time-frame involved. Within two hours of a British athlete winning a gold medal, the stamps had to be printed at all sites, trimmed and collated into the unique gold medal bags ready for the Royal Mail drivers to collect at 7am the following morning so that they could go on sale at 9am. The majority of medallists were announced late afternoon with stamps completed by the evening. However, Super Saturday was a day of mixed feelings, as we worked around the clock to mark six different successes. We were watching Jessica Ennis being awarded with her medal on the TV, as her stamp was being printed, swiftly followed by Greg Rutherford and Mo Farah. It was a euphoric night, but the one where we were most aware of the pressure!"

John Fry
Production director, B&D Print Services
We came late into the process, about three to four months before the off, as someone had dropped out of the process and we replaced them. This meant that we had to do two years of R&D and testing in three months. Basically we had to jump through hoops. But we didn’t have enough time to get used to it and start worrying. It’s an old adage that you’re only as good as your people, and I’m not being trite in saying it was true. Any difference in colour or appearance makes a stamp more valuable and so that was not allowed to happen."