help for designers

[Joe]

Originally Posted by Snoopygolf

"If my $60 inkjet can print it, how come your expensive RIP can't?" It was an RGB newspaper. The whole damned file (type and all) was rasterized RGB! I don't mind the Designers with college education. From my experience, they tend to work with you, because that is their job and career. It's these damned DIYers that are killing me.

I hear ya...justice would be to go ahead and print it for her that way and then sit back and listen to her whine about her type being out of register! And if that $60 inkjet is so great why doesn't she just go ahead and print out her 3000 copies on it? Probably because she wants the job in this lifetime!

[LadIndy]

Originally Posted by Platypibri

I admit, I work for a fairly small print shop, and I don't have the decades of experience some of you guys do, but really, I haven't encountered a file yet I couldn't make work, usless the source images just didn't have the resolution to make it worth it. Sure, I get "2 color" jobs in RGB color space, and some of the most jacked up PDFs known to man, and I even got a Printshop Pro .SIG file last week which, well if there is a piece of crap bigger than Publisher, it's got to be Printshop Pro. But I got them all to plate. I guess I'm just not understanding the fuss. So, I guess I need to be educated. Tell me, what horrors have I yet to experience? I also freelance some design, so what should I NOT do?

Can't resist the challenge of trying to get impossible files to press, huh. Wait until you do it for the umpteenth time from the same client. It's not so challenging then.

It's not whether you get the final file to press, it's HOW MUCH TIME YOU SPEND FIXING IT. In the printing business as well as any other business, TIME IS MONEY. The faster you can get a file through prepress and on the press, correctly, the faster you can move on to the next job and hence, collect payment from a satisfied customer. When you're in the industry for a long time you'll begin to get tired of fixing files, wasting your time and your company's money and then you'll see what all the fuss is about and then you'll understand why designers/customers who supply truly correct and press ready files are AS GOOD AS GOLD.

As for being a freelance designer, what you can do: learn all you can and keep learning and communicate with all those involved to produce a clean, efficient file for everyone to work on. Then you, too, will be one of those welcome designers whose files we love to work on. As for the DON'T: don't think that you can't learn anymore and remember, questions before the job is completed, are much better than the questions why something went wrong after.

[tuff_gong]

I can get anything to output eventually, but I spent almost all week on one project. It was put together by committee. Read on and feel my pain.....

1. 4 Excell files
2. 2 Powerpoint Slides
3. A lo-res pdf or 2
4. Some Word files
5. 3 pagemaker PC files, with embedded wordart graphics.
6. A page in Wordperfect.

All to turn magically into a 12-page 4/4 book. The lessons are:

1. Acrobat Pro with Pitstop is as important as oxygen.
2. Quark doesn't love me anymore; Indesign is my saviour.

[DigitalPrePress228]

a designer friend of mine teaches a college level design class, and she asked me to come in and talk to her class about what not to do when working with a printshop. I'm going to tear those kids apart. I already have a 15 point lesson plan worked out. And the focus will be on the following:

applications
fonts
layout (i want to kill myself when I get a pdf of a 2x3.5 business card in the middle of an 8.5x11 sheet with crop marks.)
etc....it should be fun.

[Platypibri]

What bothers me more than bad files is the customers that can't seem to understand the concept of signing off on a proof. I mean the stamp on our proofs is so clear. Check one, I approve as is, I approve with noted changes, I do not approve. No one can understand why we charge more money for changes after we have a signed proof. I just can't comprehend how you sign off on a proof and then call to make changes. I just screamed. Be glad you weren't here to hear it.

[DCurry]

Originally Posted by Platypibri

What bothers me more than bad files is the customers that can't seem to understand the concept of signing off on a proof.

Happens all the time, unfortunately. We 've actually had a customer come for a press check, sign off on it and then her boss rejected the job when it was delivered. He said she wasn't qualified to do the press check. Well, hello -- why the heck was she the one sent on the press check in the first place?

[rennie]

its not only designers that fuck up! the amount of times i have had printers lie to me about jobs, usually 'yeah a courier just picked it up , its on the way to the client' when in reality they have forgotten about it or havent got a chance to do it yet...

[DCurry]

Originally Posted by rennie

its not only designers that fuck up! the amount of times i have had printers lie to me about jobs, usually 'yeah a courier just picked it up , its on the way to the client' when in reality they have forgotten about it or havent got a chance to do it yet...

Listen to me carefully - we do not f*** up! :wink:

Ha-ha - I've screwed up my share of jobs along the way (we all have, I'm sure), but I always own up to it and don't try to pass the blame or responsibility to someone else. It also becomes a learning experience - what went wrong and how can I avoid it in the future?

[Pointyhat]

I could use a little venting myself. just got an email last night telling me I had a Nov 10 press deadline for a project I haven't even started. Program book containing 40 ads, probably 28-32 pages, BW, 8.5 x 11 folded in half. Fine, just do as i say and no one will get hurt, I've done 3x as big in less time. Called the printer, told the prepress person to expect an emailed pdf coming on the 10th as they're 45 minutes away, I won't be able to get there, ovenight out of the question, we'll still be proofing. No big deal 1 color, one film per page.
She want the quark doc so she can move pages around. Huh??? Why do you want to move pages around?? She's going to bookletize by hand!! Are you going to charge my client for this? Don't you have imposition software? Am i out of line to be freaked?
Not a good day to be pissing me off.
:twisted:

[almaink]

Originally Posted by rennie

its not only designers that fuck up! the amount of times i have had printers lie to me about jobs, usually 'yeah a courier just picked it up , its on the way to the client' when in reality they have forgotten about it or havent got a chance to do it yet...

Thats the salesman talking, not the printers.