I’m always on the lookout for inspiring design, and Web Creme delivers. I may not find all of the featured designs particularly noteworthy, but many of the linked sites have found their way into my “Inspiration” bookmarks folder. I especially like the color palette tool. Each design has a color scheme represented as tiny color blocks. To find other designs on the site using the same color, just click on one of the blocks. There’s no extra information on the site, and the streamlined presentation really highlights the design. Check it out.

I use a MacBook Pro with Leopard 10.5.1 as my operating system. I bought this system in October 2007 after my previous Mac crashed and was unrecoverable (Ack! I still hate writing that). After hearing some mixed reviews of Leopard, I was a little apprehensive, but I’ve been really happy with it in general, and haven’t regretted the upgrade.

Until this week.

Note: This is the third in my series of guest posts. Mary Gay Marchese is the public relations director of Markzware. Marchese writes press releases, feature articles, presentations and reports as she networks with numerous media contacts for the printing, publishing and graphic arts industries. Mary Gay can be reached at pr@markzware.com. — Leslie

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. It’s 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.

What are some of the problems, you ask the printer. The response: You’ve sent low-resolution graphics, and have missing files and graphic items that have the wrong color space. What’s more, the job has missing or stylized fonts. “Ugh,” you say. “How come I didn’t know the file I created and designed was improperly prepared and has become a can of worms?

The reason is that the job that was created was not ‘designed’ correctly.

The word ‘design’ means more than making a product look pretty. Of course, a beautiful piece is very important. But possibly more significantly, is how the piece works and functions. The ‘design’s’ performance is the result of the designers objectives in terms of getting the reader to ‘think something’ and to ‘do something’.

To ensure the desired performance, it is imperative that the ‘mechanical design’ is accurate. Wikipedia’s definition of ‘design’ includes this statement: ‘… Designing normally requires a designer to consider the aesthetic, functional, and many other aspects of an object or a process, which usually requires considerable research, thought, modeling, interactive adjustment, and re-design…’

What preflighting software does is assist the ‘right brained’ designer, by providing a logical /mechanical software solution that does the left-brained work for him/her. Preflighting is a logical process. This process needs to be included within the overall design and construction of the piece to be printed. The end objective needs to be thought out well in advance. That is, that the piece will print as expected. Because, if this doesn’t happen, the entire design concept is worthless.

In the new era of digital design, graphic artists must think beyond aesthetics and accept some of the responsibility that prepress and printers once held. The idea of a quality control check, or preflight provides in macro terms the benefit of “lean” manufacturing for both designers and printers.

Preflighting for print and establishing an effective workflow also includes:
• identifying defective products
• eliminating overproduction
• excessive
• reducing work-in-process inventory
• avoiding over-processing
• stopping unnecessary movement of people and of products
• and waiting

Graphic artists of days gone by may have had it easier than their contemporary counterparts. Primarily, they could concentrate on the aesthetics of great content, allowing others—prepress and print production people, for example—to deal with the mechanics of producing it.

But the role of today’s graphic artist is a bit more complicated, thanks to the introduction of new electronic media and a shift of responsibilities. By and large, “prepress” has fallen by the wayside, leaving it up to creative professionals to be both designers and technicians, and to bridge the gap between design conception and final reproduction.

Clearly, a design’s destination (print, online, CD-ROM, and so forth) determines how a file should be created. A document bound for print will have different resolution, color-space, and trim-and-bleed requirements, for example, compared to content meant for the Web. Knowing the output intentions is important, but ensuring that digital files meet those specifications is equally as critical.

The bottom line is to follow the basic rules of print production, preflighting utility programs should be used to check designs. A systematic check of files before they go to a print vendor or are printed in-house is the best way to ensure error-free output.

One of the easiest ways to save is to pay close attention to prepress expenses. The costs of film, direct-to-plate or creating PDF files for print are enormous. And when there is a problem resulting in the job to be re-printed the costs add up, exponentially.

The printed word is a very reliable format for reaching potential audiences. Creating eye-catching flyers and marketing material has been greatly enhanced by digital technologies. Page layout programs, such as QuarkXPress and Adobe’s InDesign, have helped streamline the design and production process, which encompasses acquiring materials, designing the piece and checking the integrity of the file before final print.

Preflighting the design just takes moments. Those few seconds can save graphic professionals hours of misery fixing problems that will show up after film or plates are created. The financial savings in time and materials can be tremendous to marketers eager to get the message in the hands of potential new customers.

A note from Leslie: I firmly believe that one of the things that separates a design professional from an amateur with a copy of Adobe’s Creative Suite is the ability to send technically correct files to press. Markzware makes this a lot easier.

Word of Mouth. As far as I’m concerned, this is the best way to get new clients. When someone has heard good things about you from a source that they trust, your job of selling yourself and your services is 80% easier. They’re not looking for reasons to hire you, they’re looking to see what you can do for them. It may sounds like the same thing, but it’s not. When someone comes in cold, there’s a credibility hurdle you have to get over — who am I and why should you trust me? When a word of mouth client comes in, the trust is basically established. So and so recommended you, and I trust them, so I’ll trust you.

Of course, this is the hardest way to get clients at first, because it’s a catch 22. You have to have clients to get other clients by word of mouth. It also serves as a good reminder that the design world is small and your reputation will start to spread. Make sure it’s a good one.

Networking. There are countless groups to join: your local Chamber of Commerce, Design Groups (like the AIGA, GAG, or SPD), Networking Groups (like BNI), user groups (Hidden-Tech is a local group) and clubs (The Ad Club of Western Massachusetts is another local organization). Depending on your availability, the list can be endless. But here’s the secret: once you join, you have to get involved. It’s not going to be good enough to show up at a meeting or event once in a while. Volunteer. Get to know the officers of the group. Make yourself indispensable. It may take a while to start seeing results, but they will almost certainly come.

Advertising. This is important, but the returns are much fewer than in the other two options I’ve mentioned. When I get a potential client through word of mouth or networking, I end up getting the job 7 or 8 times out of 10. When someone contacts me because they’ve seen an ad of mine or found me on the web, it’s more like 2 or 3 out of 10. Why? The person who comes through an ad is typically just starting the process of hiring a designer. They’re looking at other companies, comparing prices and services, and figuring out what they want. There’s nothing wrong with any of that, of course. But the person who knows you (or knows someone who knows you) is usually ready to go, and have basically already made the decision to use you, or have significantly narrowed the field by the time you speak to them. Advertising is important, but if you rely on it to account for more than 50% of your business, you’re going to spend a lot of time in interviews and writing proposals that never turn into paying jobs.

Do you have any secret weapons to find new clients? What works for you?

Inside, there was quite a bit to like. My favorite articles were the short and dirty ones. “Snark Attack” (evaluating the questionable design of Cosmopolitan), “Retouchy Subject” (which chose the month’s most heavily retouched cover photo), and The White Stuff: Disguising a Mess (design tips). I also really liked two longer articles a lot: Health & Unhappiness: Why a Daring Redesign Went Bad (the inside story on Health’s redesign) and SOS: Too Much Space (more design tips).

So will I subscribe? I’m still on the fence. I definitely enjoyed my free issue, but I suffer from over-subscriptionitis. I already receive more magazines in a month then I have time to read, and at $55/year I’m not sure I’ll be able to spend enough time with FPO for it to make sense to spend that much money on FPO. I’ll keep you posted.

Fred Herzog. Three Theaters, 1957.

That is some gorgeous photo. Over the cacophony of the neon signs and street lights, the typefaces on the signs are like candles in the night. This photo is from 1957 and it shows in the letterforms, but in many ways it seems totally contemporary to me. The gallery site says “Perfectly composed and atmospheric, the people and places that Herzog captured in the 1950’s and 1960’s, remind us of a period of transition, hope and a move toward the modern era.” I totally agree.

This photo is on display at the Laurence Miller Gallery in New York City from April 3 - May 31. Uncoincidentally, Larry is my uncle, but it’s not nepotism speaking when I say that his gallery is one of the best in the US. If you’re in the area, go see the show.