Your design goes off to the printer and comes back a week later as 10,000 high-quality, full-color brochures. Yes, your graphic design talents were needed, but so was the art of the PrePress Production Operator:
Multiple Intelligence lesson plan, #4
Color bar, Crop marks, Resgister marks, Tick or Fold marks, Legend- all some of the elements that help tie your design together into what will be a predictable output via PDF. And oh yes, they preflight, as should you! As designers, several of the “tips” that are given often regard having a better understanding of the prepress process and a good communication with the printer. See link below to article:
Your in-plant is slick. You’ve got the latest and greatest in print engines and a stealthy prepress workflow. But, what good is it when the front end of the process is replete with bad files — customer - supplied content that’s poorly prepared and requires time and expense to fix?
This is a problem many printing organizations — and in-plants, instant print shops, large-format print suppliers and general commercial printing companies — face today. Content coming into many printing plants just isn’t good.
In the digital workflow for print and multimedia, graphic artist must think beyond aesthetics and accept some of the responsibility that prepress suppliers once held.
If any of your design work in the past decade has been for print, you’ve undoubtedly borne witness to a revolution unfolding — the advent of digital content creation and computer-to-plate (CTP) print manufacturing. Film went away and was replaced by the exchange of digital files between designer and printer.
Never before has the world of graphic arts been so dynamic, so ripe with change and new opportunities afforded by emerging creative technologies. And no longer are the creations made in popular desktop programs - like QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign or Microsoft Word - bound to the traditional constraints of print. These days, businesses create content for any number of purposes.
As a graphic designer, has this ever happened to you?
The scenario: You’ve sent your marketing masterpiece that you have meticulously designed to your printer. The deadline is tight, but you made it. Then the phone rings. Its your printer calling to let you know they are having problems printing your piece. You are about ready to scream because the client is waiting to get this piece out to his customers.
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.
If you have been in the print industry for any length of time, you know that there are certain file types printers dread receiving from customers. Right at the top of the list is content created in Microsoft Publisher. You see, almost every prepress department out there is Mac-based, and Microsoft has never released a Mac version of Microsoft Publisher.
Attention:Printers, graphic designers, prepress professionals and publishers Markzware is coming to a city near you!
First stop is beautiful San Diego, California at the San Diego Convention Center. On February 20, visit Markzware at booth # 404, during the “Passion For Print” show, hosted by the PIASD.
Second stop join us in warm and sunny Miami at that Graphic of the Americas at the Miami Convention Center booth #1503 February 28-March 1.
Third stop will be the historical city of Boston for the On Demand show at the Boston Convention Center booth # 120 March 4-6.
