The cause of most of these problems is poor communication. Throughout your project’s life it has been scrutinised, redesigned, re-written, edited, typeset, illustrated and more. But when a project is passed into new hands it is often done so with little regard to the fact that the recipient will be seeing this job for the first time and will most certainly not know all the facts, parametres, specs and requirements the project has unless you take the time to spell it out.

To avoid incurring extra costs or engaging in rounds of “he said she said” when mistakes are made, try this checklist and the tips that follow when passing on your job to outside hands:

JOB SHIPPING CHECKLIST

• Check your work: Run a spell check, ensure your images are CMYK and of sufficient resolution, convert Pantones to Process if necessary. Taking a moment to ensure everything is fine will save your butt at some point.
• Put everything on disk: Collect your layouts, fonts, proof PDFs, images and art. Include PSD files and a READ ME with notes if your film house needs to do any work.
• Include Printouts: Make sure you have laser prints from every layout on the disk and an approved colour match proof, with Pantone® chips if necessary.
• Include Mockups: Mock up any job that is more than a simple one-sided 8.5 x 11 job. This clarifies what cuts and folds go where and also serves as a final check for you before it ships. Make an extra mockup for you to keep at the same time.
• Write your instructions: Have you re-summarised the job for your supplier? Have you added notes on the lasers of things that are important to you and the job? Are you clear when you need it to be finished? Write it down, and keep copies for yourself.
• Keep copies: Make a copy of what you send to your supplier. Include all notes, mockups and printouts as well as a copy of what was ON the disk (ie copy the disk, keep a separate folder on your hard drive for “shipped” material or burn 2 copies of the disk). That way if there are any questions or if anything is missing you and your supplier can reference EXACTLY the same things and solve problems quickly and efficiently.
• If you FTP: Ship printouts and colour proofs out as soon as you can. If you can’t, then AT THE VERY LEAST have a proof PDF generated and ensure it goes with the FTP’d files as a reference point for your supplier.

NOTES AND DETAILS
1) Include printouts and colour proofs with every job:
Even if you are FTP-ing the files you MUST make printouts of all the files you are sending as a reference point to the recipient (In the case of FTP’d files, ship them by courier immediately as a follow up).

And MOST IMPORTANTLY: make printouts from the disk you are shipping to ensure 2 things…
a) That everything on the disk has a printout and
b) That everything on the disk looks as you intend it to look.

2) Include Mockups:
Does your job fold? Does it have 2 sides? It is multiple pages? Are there dielines? If you answered YES to any of the above then your job envelope needs to include an accurate mockup of the final piece. Print it out on your laser printer, at a smaller size if necessary, and cut, trim and glue it to match the job as closely as possible. Even something as simple as a single fold or 2-sided print needs a mockup… If you do this you have expressed your intention clearly and that is the path to avoiding costly mistakes.

3) Spec your colours with samples:
If your job must match a corporate pantone colour, whether the job is Pantone or CMYK, you must attach the pantone chips to the printouts with instructions to “Match PMS Number___”. Remember though that not all PMS colours can be reproduced in CMYK but adding instructions like these can flag the printer to your intent and he will provide guidance from that point. Please send appropriate Pantone chips as well, send coated chips for reproduction on coated stock. DO NOT send printed samples on different media for your printer to match. For example: sending a PMS colour printed on matte stock with a job being printed in CMYK on coated stock and telling them to “match this colour exactly” will not yield you the results you are looking for from any printer.

4) Write everything down:

• Client: Do not discuss anything with your supplier verbally and then expect it to be remembered weeks later when the job arrives. Provide detailed follow up instructions in writing with the job when you send it.
• Suppliers: Take notes in meetings and if you notice job specs have changed from discussion to realisation, flag it to your client, especially if the changes have affected your quote.

5) Assume the recipient is an idiot:
Now this may seem insulting to some, but when packaging your job and adding notes to the package and instructions, write them in such a way that no one could possibly misunderstand. You may have full confidence in your contact at the print shop but who knows who will be first to open the envelope? Some shops run multiple shifts. Your supplier is NOT an idiot but leave no details to memory or chance, start from scratch and include notes on EVERYTHING… write all over your laser prints if you have to. Provide DETAILED instructions and your part of the job is done.

6) Answer Questions:
Even after all of this your supplier may still have questions. Having worked on both sides of this equation I can say with bafflement that not all agencies like to answer questions from their suppliers. Sometimes it means they have to go back to their clients and perhaps there is an unwillingness to do so. I won’t speculate further here but I will say that how we handle mistakes, problems and crises during a job is as important as sending those invoices at the end of the day.

A FINAL THOUGHT
The best business partners I have had have been my suppliers. I need them, they need me. I berate them on their mistakes and admit my own, I push them only when i need to and they trust me on that. Together we deliver for our clients… having a poor supplier is a nightmare so work with yours, communicate well and your clients need only know they can trust you and your network.

david

Something as simple as the definition of a printing term would cause so much discussion. Once, a heated discussion was had at the office over the use of the word LIVE AREA.

Now, to clarify this is what I think it is in my own words:
Live Area: Also known as a visible or image area. The term is often used in a situation where part of your creative may be covered… ie in framed poster media the live or visible area is the part of the creative that is seen and not hidden by the frame.

Safe Area: An area within the live or visible area in which you must keep all your text or important graphics to avoid them being trimmed, cut off, or too close to the edge.

The Alternate Definition
The dissenting viewpoint insists that LIVE is the same as SAFETY.

Problem is that in checking on 2 printing term glossary sites, One agreed with me and the other with my counterpoint.

http://www.cdlinc.com/glossary.htm says:

Live area. Alternate term for Image area.

Image area. Portion of a negative or plate corresponding to inking on paper; portion of paper on which ink appears.

But http://www.printindustry.com/glossary.htm#L says:

Live Area: Area on a mechanical within which images will print. Also called safe area.

So who is right?

I would think that if I researched it enough I would find that one definition is more prevalent than the other. But not all glossaries deals with the term. On two pages of GOOGLE search results for the string “print terms glossary” I found only one other site which defined “Live area” and THAT site was a carbon copy of the printindustry.com definition so it is from the same source but not an independant voice:

http://www.morganpress.com/glossary.html#L says:

Live Area: Area on a mechanical within which images will print. Also called safe area.

So they are saying that live is defined as both the entire image area and the safe area. Now if they had said INCLUDING the safe area I would have agreed with them and even though it is 2 to 1 against my definition I still do not agree (I am stubborn and need more proof)

So what’s an artist to do until the Globe and Mail prints an exposé on the strife within our industry and sets the record straight?

I have said it before in posts on preflight and shipping files. Overstate your intentions, add notes to everything that is leaving your hands and try to be as clear as possible as to the intention of what you are trying to convey.

Ultimately you can argue the definitions of industry terminology all day or you can simply clarify what you mean by saying something like “Live / Visible Area” and “Type / Graphic Safety” and move on.

LIFE’s too short to argue about LIVE.

david

One of the biggest frustrations I’ve seen over the years crops up when an artist calls in sick and someone has to log onto their computer to continue their jobs… and cannot find files or linked images or the PSDs because of a folder structure (or lack of) which only the original artist can understand.

The solution to this is something that can start with an individual artist but should be adopted company wide… Adopt a consistent and organised directory structure to be used by all the artists.

If everyone keeps a “JOBS” folder in the SAME place on their computers and names all projects consistently (ie. DOCKET_NUMBER_Brochure) and then manages their assets within the job the same way – then switching artists, archiving and retrieval is made immeasurably easier.

For example, for a simple print production job, consider the following folder structure:

ARCHIVE: As the client makes major revision of the project, keep a legacy of older versions in here. Invariably, the client sometimes backtracks and if you have overwritten an earlier version you will find your self doing the work twice.

ART: A good place to keep all your Illustrator EPS and AI files.

CREATIVE DEV: When you are supplied creative files or if you created Low resolution prototypes, store them here for future reference. Treat this differently from the ARCHIVE as these files are not rejected versions but rather APPROVED CREATIVE from you or an art director.

IMAGES: Photoshop files. Separate your PSDs from your High and Low Resolution flat files.

SHIPPED FILES: I always like to store my COLLECTED or PACKAGED files for shipping to the printer or client here. These would include art and image files as well as fonts if necessary. Keeping a separate folder copy means you have a record of EXACTLY what you burned to disk in case any problems crop up.

SOURCE: Place Word docs, supplied jpegs and other non production source files here. I like to do this so that I have a record of what files and file formats the client sent me before I start manipulating the design.

So come up with your own version of this to suit your workflow and adopt it on all production machines, and the amount of swearing that accompanies an artist’s illness will decrease to tolerable levels.

I am sorry to say I cannot help you with the amount of swearing that usually accompanies a client’s 23rd revision – today – to his brochure.

david

When setting up a die-cut piece, one of the most common errors that can occur is having the dieline knock out of all the pieces of film.
When this occurs you will get a nice white line around the edge of your piece

What happens next is up to your relationship with your service provider and how much you had asked or expected of them. Regardless of who is responsible financially, you have an issue of timing now as it needs to be re-run.

So – rather than finger pointing – the best solution is to get into good file set-up habits and stick to them.

3 Steps to Dieline Bliss

Follow these 3 quick steps every time when creating dielines in any software package:

1. Create a spot colour and name that colour “DIELINE – does not print”
(don’t forget to include this colour in your slugs to flag your suppliers of its existence)

2. Stroke your dieline with a 0.5 pt stroke of that “DIELINE – does not print” colour, fill of none.

3. Set the dieline to overprint.

How do I set Overprint?

You can find trapping and overprint controls in all your graphics software titles:
Illustrator: Under the menu WINDOW / ATTRIBUTES set “Overprint Stroke”.
InDesign: Under the menu WINDOW / ATTRIBUTES set “Overprint Stroke”.
XPress: Under the menu WINDOW / TRAP INFORMATION set Line to “Overprint”

david

It boils down to the old adage.

YOU CAN HAVE YOUR JOB DONE:
QUICKLY
CHEAPLY
ACCURATELY…

PICK 2.

At the best of times, taking a moment to have a second look at your job before going to press is always worth it. What I am compiling here is a list of the top 10 most common errors made by experienced and inexperienced artists alike, based on my own experiences.

So have a second look at your job with these quick checks in mind:

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1. Using quotes for inches and inches for quotes.

Closing quotes are not inch marks and inch marks are not quotation marks. Proper typesetting demands we be careful with these.

Quotes on the MAC:
Open Double Quotes: option + [
Close Double Quotes: option + shift + [
Open Single Quote: option + ]
Close Single Quote: option + shift + ]

In InDesign
When placing text from a Word Doc, click “Import Options” and select or deselect “Use Typographer’s Quotes” as necessary. This option is also available under PREFERENCES / TYPE so be aware of what it converts or not if you have a mixture of measurements and quotes in your document.

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2. Not allowing for a shorter panel in a tri-fold brochure.

What is a tri-fold?
Tri-folding is one of the most common brochure formats. Usually printed on letter or legal paper and folded to create 6 or even 8 panels depending on paper size.

The problem is that unlike an Accordion or Z fold, these panels fold in on each other so one of the panels has to be shorter than the others in order to achieve a flat fold. One Sixteenth to One Eighth of an inch is usually sufficient for lighter stocks.

Remember that the shorter panel is on the RIGHT side on the INSIDE of your brochure (pictured below) and on the LEFT on the OUTSIDE.

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3. No Mockup for your printer.

It is very important to make a mock-up of your piece both during the creative stages and when sending the disk to your printer. This is true for all double sided, folded or glued jobs. With reference to mistake #2 above, a mock-up is the best way to realise you may not have made your inside flap short enough to fold flat.

You may also be interested in my post on How to Ship Files.

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4. Improper use or non-usage of rich blacks.

Using a rich black, ie 30C30M30Y100K on small text is asking for trouble. If your printing is even slightly off register then your text will appear blurry.

On the other side of the coin, large areas of black need that extra punch. Adding 30C to 100K will give you a rich cool black. If you have coloured text or images on your black field then 30C30M30Y30K for your black will ensure your colours have a nice seam with your background.

And never use “Registration” as a colour. 100C100M100Y100K is too much ink for any job.

If you have very large areas of flat colour, you may want to consider a Pantone. Please consult with your printer on this.

See also my blog posts on Watch Your Blacks or Ink Densities.

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5. Failure to convert all Pantones to CMYK for a 4 colour job.

This speaks for itself. Your Pantones may be embedded in your Illustrator files or simply part of your InDesign file. Depending on your relationship with your printer or film house, leaving a Pantone in may get you a fifth colour you were not prepared to pay for.

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6. Failure to convert RGB images to CMYK.

When outputting to film your RGB images will simply come out on the black plate. Hardly the colourful effect you were promising your client. It is always worth checking the colour space and resolution of your images before committing to print.

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7. Too high or too low resolution for job specifications.

It is often tempting to just dump an image into your project and go from there. But if an image has way too much resolution then your production time, file saves and proofing are all slowed down unnecessarily. If you are that unaware of the resolution of your project’s images there is also the chance they will be too low.

Take a few moments to optimise the image sizes for your project and things will go smoother and faster for you and your end results will, of course, be spectacular.

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8. Failure to run a spell check and mixing American with Canadian spellings.

OF instead of IF is hard to find with a spell check so there is no substitute for proofreading. But a spell check is your last line of defence before putting ink on paper.

Oh, and watch your COLORS, or is it COLOURS? Decide early on if your project is to be based on American or Canadian (British) spellings and stay consistant.

Since most Spell Checks default to American english you may find this website handy: Spelling differences between American and British English.

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9. Insufficient safety and bleed areas.

Bleeds and Safety’s are for your own good. They ensure that everything that needs ink has it and all your important elements stay on the page and are not cut off.

Add One Eighth Inch bleed to all your projects as a default (unless your printer specs differently) and talk to your printer about your safety area. The safety can vary upwards from a minimum of One Eighth Inch depending on the folding, binding and trimming requirements of your job.

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10. Covering your glue flaps with ink.

You have designed a lovely box for your client but your production file has your inks bleeding all the way onto the glue flaps. The usual One Eighth Inch bleed is all you need past the fold or score. My printer always warned me that covering the flap with ink can reduce the effectiveness of the glue and if your printer does not mask it off for you then your finisher may have trouble with the final piece.

david

What you may find is that two images were pasted together in a collage that both had “black” backgrounds but that they were made up of different formulas…ie one background would be 100K and another may be 30c30m30y100K… on screen they might match but when ink hits paper this can turn into a disastrous print job with the 100K black seeming like a grey next to the richer black.

The solution to spotting this problem can be found in your channels.

Switch to channels view and look at your image background in each of the CMYK or RGB channels. If the colour mixes of your supposedly solid colour background do not match they will quickly show up here (see sample below).

Then, simply go back to your layers and adjust your colours.

Finally: You may also be interested in my post on Ink Density.

david

It is a final look through all your production files in order to do a last quality check before they leave your building. This not only saves time as it hopefully eliminates many common project-delaying errors, but it also saves money as a final quality and content check ensures all the client’s colours are correct and all the project specifications are adhered to.

I have always felt it is best to have someone other than the production artist look over the files as a fresh set of eyes is more likely to catch potential problems. Create a paper checklist to keep your work methodical and which you can hand back to the artist flagging problems for correction.

Depending on your industry or the nature of your files, use and adapt the following checklist when Preflighting files:

Quick Quality Checklist by a dedicated Preflight Manager

1. Artist: Collect or package all your files, ready to burn to CD and update links. Prepare all your paperwork, burn to disk, and package everything up ready for the supplier then hand it off to your quality control manager for a final check. If you need help preparing your package read my article on How To Ship Files.
Goal: Preparing the package to go out means that all materials in your package – digital or paper – can be checked and if it is approved it can go immediately to the supplier.

2. Preflighter: take the package and download the contents of the disk to your hard drive so you have a record of what you checked and what shipped.

3. While they are downloading: Look at all the paperwork and the printouts supplied by the artist.
Goal: This visual check gets you familiar with the job and flags the most obvious problems quickly.
a) Do they seem to have been built to supplier specifications?
b) Are printouts of all elements on the disk provided?
c) Do they seem to conform to your company’s expected standards?
d) Do you see any obvious errors (ie safety, spelling, improper template usage)?
e) are the markups to your supplier clear or do they raise more questions?

3. Run a preflight software like Flightcheck
Goal: For me, Flightcheck is the fastest way to get a snapshop of the project as a whole allowing you to flag potential problems immediately.
Once files are downloaded and you have made some notes from the printouts for follow up, load the fonts and run the files through Flightcheck.
It will flag:
a) RGB Images which should be CMYK
b) low resolution images
c) missing fonts
d) Pantone colours in use
e) missing images

4. Now look at the files
Goal: You have flagged issues from the printouts and flightcheck. Now it’s time to open and have a look at the files themselves.
a) are they built to the correct size?
b) what file format are they (Illustrator, Quark, InDesign, PDF) and is this appropriate to the job?
c) are they the right scale?
d) is there enough bleed and are all graphics within the safety area?
e) are folds, dielines and glue flaps created properly?
f) check Ink densities (see my Ink Density post)

Total time for check up to this point: 15-30 mins (perhaps up to an hour for a larger project)

At this point you have three options for your project
1. Run with it as is and ship package to supplier
2. Request revisions and a new disk from the artist
3. Flag marginal problems with the Studio Manager or Account person and decide on course of action (ie fix or ship)

Stay consistant and allow that extra 1/2 hour for the quality check and you will see your re-run or re-print costs go down. You will not eleiminate every error but in a busy studio, where artists are often rushed, taking a moment to stop and double check things will be time well spent.

david

You need to have a target skintone in order to achieve predictable results when the images print.

Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Standard – Upgrade Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Standard

SKINTONES BY THE NUMBERS
You can only go so far adjusting skin tones visually, your screen, ambient light and your skills all play a role in the result. BUT, if you adjust your skintones by the numbers… ie to targetted values, you will have more control and more predictable results.

USING THE CHART
The chart below gives tonal targets for skin MID-TONES. Put your eye dropper over an area in your image, like the cheek, that is neither in shadow nor in bright light and note the RGB or CMYK values. Compare those colour values with the chart below and using it as a guide only, correct your colours, one channel at a time, using Photoshop’s Curves (Menu: Image/Adjustments/Curves).

BUT, the question remains, “Should you adjust in RGB or CMYK mode?”

STEP 1: Start in RGB mode
RGB mode has more colour range than CMYK, so your adjustments can be more refined. Do your visual correction in RGB, make the image look pleasing to you on screen, then use the RGB colour targets in the chart below to further refine your adjustments. If you are staying in RGB mode then you are done, otherwise it is time to switch to CMYK.

STEP 2: Switch to CMYK (if going to press)
Make your final tone adjustments in CMYK mode – again, one channel at a time – to your Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black channels.

COLOUR CHART
The colour chart below is an RGB image representing the mid-tone skin values in the table above. Please keep in mind through all of this that interpreting skintones is often subjective, there is a wide range of skintones in the people around us and it would not hurt to start collecting your own samples like the chart below. Use these numbers as a starting point and keep refining your own charts and you will be one step closer to predictable results every time.

click to download:

david

We all became Graphic Artists to avoid just this kind of thing right? I mean who can forget that feeling of elation and relief upon finding out that such a profession even exists?

THEY PAY US TO DRAW, DOODLE, AND DESIGN THINGS?
Yep, good times… good times…

And then some numbskull asks us to design something to 1/4 scale and the bottom falls out from our world.

“WHAT? What do they mean? What resolution do i need? How big? Why?”

OK people, time to grow up a bit. This isn’t accounting it is basic math, the math of scales and if there is one “math” thing a Graphic Artist needs to be able to do it is to figure out how to design to scale.

WHY DO WE HAVE TO DESIGN TO SCALE?
Not all graphic arts is printed on tiny sheets of paper. Sometimes you need to design things for billboards, walls, busses and cars. Now these things in themselves provide their own unique design challenges concerning legibility at distance, suitability of certain imagery, and placement of graphic elements on curves or glass surfaces. I’ll get into those points another time but for now let’s concentrate on SCALE and RESOLUTION.

You see, when you have to create art for something, say, 300″wide by 50″tall, it makes sense to bring it down to a manageable canvas size in your layout software. At last check XPress can only go to 48″wide so how do you lay out something that big in only 48″? Answer: SCALE IT.

WHAT SCALE? ASK YOUR PRINTER!!
The printer is your best resource here, he will tell you what software to use, what resolution he needs and he can often provide templates which will most always ask you to build a file at a scale of the final size. Common scales are 10%, 12%, 25%, or 50%.

You have to apply a bit of math here, and 10% is just about the simplest scale imaginable. A 300″ wide wall at 10% scale is only a 30″ wide InDesign file – for example.

I have prepared a chart below to illustrate how scale is applied to large format design files.

HINT: With InDesign and Illustrator, when you set your document size you can make them do the math for you. For a 300″ wide job at 25% scale type the following into your DOCUMENT WIDTH FIELD: 300/4. That’s the same as saying “300 divided by 4″… or “25% of 300″. Your document size will then be set to 75 inches automatically.

WHAT ABOUT MY IMAGE RESOLUTION?
When you deisgn to scale you have to do a wee bit of math to your images as well to ensure you have enough resolution for the larger scale. The surprise here is that while the images WILL be big, they will not need nearly as much PPI as an image you spec for offset printing on tiny bits of paper. So when a printer says he needs only 40PPI at FINAL size, believe it, and then start the math to figure out what resolution image you need in your scaled build file.

If you need more help understanding resolution please read my entry on DPI vs PPI.

I have created a chart to help you visualise how scale effects image resolution.

DID YOU NOTICE?
Did you notice that when designing to scale your canvas – or related image – size gets smaller but the resolution you need gets bigger? For a 10% scale project you are DIVIDING the canvas (or image) size by 10 and MUTIPLYING the resolution by 10.

HERE IT IS IN ACTION
So… looking at the charts above you see that for a 300″W x 50″H large format wall graphic needing a final image resolution of 40PPI and a file supplied at 10% scale you simply need to supply a 30″W x 5″H file with an image resolution of 400PPI – and you are set. AND PLEASE NOTE, you are not necessarily adding size to the image file: you are simply providing a smaller image canvas at a higher relative PPI. 300″x 50″ at 40 PPI and 30″x 5″ at 400 PPI BOTH HAVE THE SAME NUMBER OF PIXELS IN THEM.

Simple, right?

Right?

helloooooooo….

david

To fix this ask for a newsprint colour chart from the target newspaper. This will show you various colours and how they reproduce on their press/stock and as a bonus it also gives you the formulas of the colours you are looking at. Pick the closest to your target colour and you are there.

NOTE: These formulas will be for newsprint only, you have to accept that your client’s corporate colours will reproduce differently on different kinds of stock and be ready to establish a corporate colour chart for each media and not stick blindly to a prescribed pantone colour.

BUT I DON’T HAVE A NEWSPAPER CHART!
OK then, if you don’t have access to the newspaper’s chart there is still help to be had… when reproducing ORANGES remember that the main culprit is the magenta…see my example below.

THIS IS A CLIENT “CORPORATE” ORANGE SPECIFICATION
61M/97Y
THIS IS THE NEWSPRINT EQUIVALENT WE CHOSE
53M/100Y

We pumped up the yellow to 100 (based on a newsprint sample) and lowered the magenta considerably.

WHAT IF I PURCHASED A SPOT COLOUR?
With Pantones it is a different situation as you are dealing with solids but it still takes some experimentation… for the sample orange above I ended up specifying 158u for newsprint. See if you can get a newsprint proof from your film house ahead of press time to tweak your choices.

david