A monumental paper
The Sidekick prints issue 6 in color
The Sidekick staff members sold enough ads, primarily through the use of Coppell High School booster clubs, in order to print their next issue in full color. The staff had to sell twice as many advertisements to cover the color printing expenses as a typical black and white edition.
May 12, 2021
Though The Sidekick adviser Chase Wofford had already emailed the newspaper’s representative at printing company Greater Dallas Press for a quote on a full tabloid 24-page issue printed in color, Coppell High School senior Sidekick executive editor-in-chief Sally Parampottil was not willing to wait more than two weeks to get that quote, so she picked up the phone and called herself.
To Parampottil, unlike previous propositions to print in color, it was going to happen for Volume 32 Issue 6.
“I never once thought we were going to fall short,” Wofford said. “I didn’t know that [when the idea was presented], but in my heart, I felt ‘this is going to happen. We’re going to find a way to make this happen.’ Within the last couple of weeks [from April 21], I pretty much knew we got this.”
Each issue, the staff must sell a certain amount of advertisements to fund printing expenses. For The Sidekick’s standard pages 1, 12, 13 and 24 printed in color in a 24-page black-and-white issue, the total must be around $1,000. However, to print the entire issue in color, the minimum came out to $2,000.
“I’m not going to lie and say the whole staff was manning the phones, calling businesses left and right [for advertisements],” Parampottil said. “It wasn’t like that, but you had people actively trying, [such as] our social media manager, Blanche Harris, our executive design editor, Samantha Freeman, our business manager, Trisha Atluri. Even people who weren’t on the leadership team, who didn’t hear my passionate rants about how I wanted to design in color [still helped out].”
While a colored issue does produce a more attractive end product, printing in color was done for the staff.
“I see [Issue 6] as, not just a final product, but an experience throughout the process,” Parampottil said. “[It is] not just being able to hold something in color but holding something in color and knowing ‘I designed this, I put all of this together.’”
For the past 16 years in The Sidekick’s history, printing an entire issue in color has never been done before, but Parampottil hopes this time will not be the last.
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