Today at lunch a business owner friend told me a proofing disaster story.
When her freshly printed brochures were delivered, she was SO excited! As she opened the first box, she joked, “I hope there aren’t any typos.” Much to her horror, she immediately spotted the prominent error—their web address was wrong! “Surely we couldn’t have missed that?” she gasped. But when she followed up with her print rep, he faxed over the sign-off sheet that showed her employee’s signature and OK. “Well, there went five thousand bucks,” she sighed.
Proofing disasters that make it into print take on nearly mythical status: The Investor Relations 1-800 number on an annual report really belonged to an escort service. “Commmunications Committee” was spelled with an extra M. “Seatttle” on a business card address had three Ts. The catalog cover title, in 96-point type, read, ”2004 Catolog.” The flopped photo showed a guy reading a book that sported backwards type. And my favorite—and my own personal typing mistake—the invitation intro read, “The Institute of Pubic Service invites you…” !
Disaster avoidance tip
Most typos happen toward the end of projects, when everybody is sick of looking at the laser proofs. And the people who miss the typos are those who have looked at everything just too many times. Last-minute changes are made, but the production artist isn’t given the time to spell check just once more. Or the proofreader is skipped. After all, there were just a few small changes, right?
Changes are much cheaper to make before the printer’s proof stage. At this point, it’s wise to show the final laser proofs to someone who can see them with fresh eyes. The first choice is a well-rested proofreader or editor. Other good candidates are the former English major in your household or the most detail-oriented person in your office. Be sure they call every phone number and try out every web address, too!
Pressman to the rescue!
My favorite disaster avoidance solution comes from a printer I do a lot of work with here in Seattle. The company has a standing offer to pay $100 to any of their employees who finds a typo on a signed-off project at any point before it reaches the bindery.
It turns out that their pressmen and feeders are ace proofreaders. More than once, they’ve saved my project by catching the error in time for it to be fixed, making me look really good to my clients! Each $100 is paid by the project’s print rep into the department’s pool. Both the prepress and press departments have made generous donations to charities and sent especially deserving co-workers on vacation!
What was your most memorable typo?
6 comments
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July 22, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Paul Carignan
Last month we printed 50,000 brochures for a very well known Internet company based here in Silicon Valley. The “special offer” URL was wrong (discovered after printing and variable data on all pieces). After about a week, the client changed the URL to what had been printed, and thereby salvage the job. These days, URLs seem the easiest to get wrong, perhaps because they are so difficult to proofread.
July 22, 2009 at 3:59 pm
naniprints
Whew, that sounds like a great save, Paul! Thanks for your comment and the heads-up. Yes, URLs can be problematic! ~Nani
July 26, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Bruce Colthart Creative (@bccreative)
How about omissions? They can be hard to spot in proofs, whether onscreen or on paper. I recently omitted one of 9 items in a featured pie chart legend. It was my first print project with this client. Worse still was that it was discovered just after the job was delivered to my client. My gut sank of course, and I was worried about eating my design fee *plus* a 5K printing charge.
A week earlier, as I wrapped up rounds of client changes, I felt very confident about client’s proofing abilities. After all, they were “picking fly sh*t out of pepper” (as an old print salesman shared with me long ago), finding all sorts of details to fix and tweak throughout the project. But it turns out they overlooked my omission during several rounds of proofing. My bad, yes, but they ended up taking full responsibility for the oversight and I dodged a bullet! I now discuss and spell-out who has responsibility for what. still need to make it part of contract language, though…
Keep up the good work Nani; I’m enjoying the blog…
July 26, 2009 at 5:34 pm
naniprints
Hi Bruce,
Thanks for broadening this discussion! You make an excellent point about omissions—and about proofing responsibility. Most design studios I’ve worked with have a carefully worded proof sticker that must be signed off by the client at every laser proof and final printer proof round.
Despite this, I’ve seen major design firm clients pressure their design firm to bear the cost of reprinting. It makes for a very challenging situation: Which is worse, shouldering a big reprinting bill or losing a client’s repeat business? Not a position any of us would relish! Glad you didn’t have to cover the reprinting costs in the instance you describe.
Your point about contracts is also a good one. One firm I worked for had two client forms for client signature that outlined printing, one along the lines of, “when we manage your printing” and the other, “when you manage your own printing.” Both delineated responsibilities in case reprinting was required. They also had a press check release form in the instance that the client chose not to attend the press checks. I was told not to head to press without those signed forms in hand.
Ongoing education is such a crucial part of what we do all through the design and production processes, and any tool we develop that helps ensure that the client does understand the process and importance of their role in the success of the projects is worth exploring and implementing.
I hope you’ll stop by again! ~Nani
July 27, 2009 at 8:14 am
Rock Langston
Hi Nani-
My print disaster was a useful learning experience, so I’ll share it here. I was working with the board of directors and an admin person to develop a map for their regional tourism board. The goal was to combine details from about 11 different handouts into this one, new document. The admin was doing a great job of proofing, showed appropriate attention to detail, and was good to work with. File was approved and sent off for printing and shipping.
The maps looked great, but there was a significant error on one of the hiking trail charts. The admin realized what had happened: everything was looking good, so she stopped mid-way on that one chart, and went on to the next. Guess what? The info on that one, and only that one, chart was all off one line, giving the wrong elevation and difficulty specs for half of the trails.
Fortunately, my agreements always state that unless other arrangements are made, final proofreading is the responsibility of the client. Both she and the board accepted their end of things, and were gracious about it. Corrections were made, and the project reprinted at an additional cost of $7000 ($14000 total).
Lessons? Of course, we’re the first line of defense, here. We know that, but be sure to have responsibility for proofing clearly stated and understood in your agreements. If the client isn’t comfortable with that part of the process, hire a proofreader for their project.
The map can be seen here: http://www.tomatographics.com/portfolio_more.html
July 27, 2009 at 9:01 am
naniprints
Hi Rock,
I’m so glad you told this story. It’s my hope that visitors to the blog will read these cautionary tales and avoid having their own printing disasters! ~Nani