After I interviewed Sabine Lenz, founder of PaperSpecs, she gave me a live tour of the web site. www.PaperSpecs.com. I was impressed by the breadth of features offered and how easy they are to use. I’d like to share a few of my favorite features with you.
Read more about PaperSpecs features… →
One of the most mysterious parts of pricing print jobs is the pre-press cost of preparing the images for the project, whether that work is done by a printer or by a color house.
This article explains how to talk about how you want your image work to be approached, how image prep and proof costs are calculated, and how to avoid unexpected alteration charges.
If you feel intimidated or unsure when you review color image proofs, you’re not alone.
Many designers fear that they will have to give the color operator or print rep technical correction instructions like, “Take the magenta down 3 points overall.”
Even if you are confident that your technical instructions would be correct, there’s a good reason not to give them: If you tell a color specialist exactly what to do, he or she may do only that. There’s also more than one way to get to the intended result, and your instructions may cause unintended shifts to other areas of the image that an alternate approach would not.
So be articulate, but not a know-it-all. Your real job here is job is to describe—in garden-variety English—what you are seeing on the proof and what you want to be seeing. This helps the color specialist focus on the results you want. Leave it to him or her to determine the best way to achieve those results.
I just hate receiving mail with those ugly little white stickers plastered onto it, don’t you? My mailing house contact calls them lim-lim stickers.
The USPO applies them because something printed at the bottom of the postcard is interfering with the clear zone, a 4-3/4″ wide by 5/8″area at the bottom right of the mailing panel/side.
See the offending text close to the bottom on the piece below?
Barcodes speed mail delivery
Automation-compatible mail gets the most efficient handling—and often, postage discounts.
The postnet barcode that represents the zip code is one key to that automation, which is the key to speedier mail delivery. This is true for both First-Class Mail and Standard Mail Letters.
If an envelope doesn’t already have a barcode, the OCR (optical character recognition) reader reads the zip code numbers in the address and ink jets a postnet barcode onto it. But if the reader encounters other text where it plans to print that barcode—especially characters that could be interpreted as numbers—it applies the dreaded lim-lim sticker before printing the barcode. Not only that, sometimes it sticks a lim-lim on both sides of the piece!
Today I drove past the construction site for Hyatt Place Seattle, where the colorful Hyatt Place logo caught my eye.
Of course, being the print woman I am, my first thought was, “How would I print that?”
It occurred to me that this logo could be reproduced as spot colors only on an 8-color press. The other choices would be 4-color process builds—or RGB on the web.
Curious to know more about the Hyatt Place mark, I did a little web sleuthing and learned that it was designed byLippincott, am international design and brand strategy consulting firm.
Check out Lippincott’s interesting case study about the development of the brand and take a look at more Hyatt Place brand elements there.
Are logo design considerations changing? Read on and weigh in… →
A wayzgoose is an old-timey party traditionally held by printers for their apprentices at the end of August.
The eighth annual Wayzgoose and Steamroller Smackdown at Seattle’s School of Visual Concepts was not your run-of the-mill picnic. SVC had invited teams of local designers to carve large posters into battleship linoleum, ink them, then print them by running over them with a real steamroller!
Twelve teams accepted the challenge, including printer-designers from Fitch, Starbucks, Turnstyle, Methodologie, and Evolution Press. At the end of the day, the steamroller posters were auctioned off with proceeds going to support SVC’s letterpress programs.
The festivities also included tours of SVC’s letterpress studio and a tempting Letterpress Marketplace of printed broadsides, cards, and ephemera designed and printed by SVC students, local letterpress printers, and book artists.
As the afternoon passed, the clouds burned away. Hotdogs sizzled on the grill as bluegrass fiddlers serenaded the crowd. And big posters festooned the railings of the School of Visual Concepts, drying in the late-summer breeze.
What a fun day and fundraiser for a worthy cause! See the Wayzgoose Photo Gallery →
A non-profit organization planned to design and send about 1,000 event invitations. To put it mildly, pre-planning was not their strong suit, so by the time they got their invites printed and addressed, they had to mail them First Class.
Oops, there went $300 down the drain! Granted, that’s not an earth-shattering expense, but for budget-strapped organizations, any cost savings are welcome. Get Disaster Avoidance Tips →
I like to get in the loop with a print project while it’s still at the arm-waving stage. That’s the time when designers are just beginning to dream up design solutions, but haven’t done too much designing. Sometimes the entire design team gets together at this point; other times it’s just me and the lead designer. It’s a great time to include the electronic production artist, too. Don’t forget to bring the creative brief!
Before design comes arm waving
At an arm-waving stage meeting, designers ask me questions like, “Have you ever seen….” or “Is it possible to print silver ink on top of 4-color images?” or “Can you find me some printed samples of black and metallic copper Duotones?” or ”How many pages does a book need to have in order to be perfect-bound?”
I review the creative brief and ask questions to help me understand the designer’s creative intent, too. With this understanding, I can often suggest techniques and structures and start thinking about workarounds for must-have design features that may pose manufacturing challenges.
Get Disaster Avoidance Tips→
If you haven’t worked at a large graphic design studio or advertising agency, you might not be familiar with print production managers or know just what it is that we do.
Most print production managers (also called print managers, production managers, producers, or print specialists) work as part of a team that includes account executives, project managers, art directors, designers, and electronic production artists.
Although we often report to a production director or operations manager, many print production managers are also artists and craftsmen/women with a strong affinity for visual design and designers.
Like me, many print production managers are independent consultants who work with smaller design studios and agencies by project. Read more about what a print production manager does→
Meet Sabine Lenz, PaperSpecs.com founder
October 23, 2009 in Design, Industry Commentaries, Print Resources | Tags: Paper, Print Production Management, Printing Industry | 4 comments
Now that many paper merchants have eliminated Spec Rep jobs, it seems to me that there’s an information vacuum.
How do graphic designers, production managers, and printers get the paper information they need? How do you get inspired? Stay current?
One entrepreneur who has stepped in to fill these needs is Sabine Lenz, founder of www.PaperSpecs.com. I’ve been curious about PaperSpecs, so I recently asked Sabine to tell me more about her company’s services.
Read the interview with Sabine… →