Comments on: Establishing a positive relationship with your printer

By: Watchmen watchtype at datafarmer

Watchmen watchtype at datafarmer — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:38:50 +0000

[...] Creative uses for paragraph rules � InDesign Wood type photos French vocabulary shower curtain Establishing a good relationship with your printer RBtL design podcast, episode 5 50 Stunning Photoshop Text [...]

By: trsone

trsone — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 07:31:58 +0000

very good advice here. nice work!

By: johno

johno — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:04:21 +0000

Some very sound advice. Printers everywhere will love you for this.

By: Antonea Nabors

Antonea Nabors — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 23:16:14 +0000

Thanks Mike! Thanks for reading! Hopefully I can keep the weekly useful information coming!

Understanding printers is that ‘real world’ experience thing that ends up being one of the most important aspects of print. You can always ‘learn’ about bleeds, gutters, what have you…but to actually SEE how they work is a completely different level of knowledge!

By: Mike Oliver

Mike Oliver — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 13:44:48 +0000

Working with your printer is almost a whole new skill set you don’t learn in college. I remember my first major brochure project at my first job. The amount of options and choices affecting cost related to paper, trim size, color, etc were mind blowing. Working at a newspaper for 5 years I basically got a whole new insight on prepress and printing, and a ton of knowledge. Now working with the same commercial printer for a while I have learned more and more. When you first start out things like the million paper choices, paper cost, whether or not they are mil items are pretty easy to get lost in. Building a strong relationship with one local printer I think is a huge learning tool… plus sometimes you get freebies like pantone bridges, calendars, and free paper. Antonea, great blogs so far, I’m hooked.

By: Antonea Nabors

Antonea Nabors — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:47:11 +0000

Great post David! I like how you addressed asking your printer for help. I think some designers are intimidated to ask their printers for help. Yet, it is surprising how helpful just a simple question can be and how much money it can save you in the long run!

By: David Airey

David Airey — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:30:23 +0000

Hi Antonea,

Excellent pointers here. A designers relationship with the print process / their printer can’t be underestimated.

I published a blog post titled: 12 money-saving questions to ask before printing your promotional material. I don’t like leaving links to my own sites in blog comments, so you’ll find it through my name if interested. My readers left some super comments too.

I hope you’re keeping well.

By: Antonea Nabors

Antonea Nabors — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:42:07 +0000

Great mention Filip! I was mainly talking about your usual print work such as brochures, magazine layouts, etc. Thankfully rotary printing and large large print runs such as billboards are done by specific companies who specialize in those 2 things. You never know when you might come across a client who may need a simple ad done for a local newspaper though. Thanks for mentioning this!

By: Filip

Filip — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:03:25 +0000

@ IMAGE ISSUES – images in daily newspapers (rotary printing) usualy have 150-200 dpi and that works fine. if you are preparing an billboard ad, it’s OK to go below 100 dpi.

By: Antonea Nabors

Antonea Nabors — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 23:21:55 +0000

Ah! Yeah, that always makes it way more difficult. When I was working at an agency we requested a list of the printers specs that I kept at my desk as well as a folder of their document templates, so that helped out a lot!

Thanks so much for the feedback. CMYK love <3 haha. Of course there will be more in the future.