Digital Asset Management
Jennifer | 3:38 pm | January 21, 2008 | budgets, ads, prepress, process, workflow, planning, plan, General
All of your electronic artwork - support files, final ads, standards manuals, etc…. Are digital assets. It can be difficult to keep your files organised and even more difficult to ensure your suppliers and clients have access to them. There are online sites that make this simpler.
If you need to have offsite backup (that is, you need your files to survive your office burning down) you can use simple storage facilities such as X-drive. If you want a more robust solution that allow not just file management, but full search facilities and the ability to have clients work off your files, there are wide-ranging sites such as Corbis’ Media Management service, which supplies the option of fully automatic file storage, archiving and retrieval.
Guess which service is more expensive.
There are a number of solutions available to you. As always, they’re only worth as much as you’re willing to work with them. It’s still up to you to ensure everything is kept up to date and proper search terms (if applicable) are generated for each shot. If your supplier is going to allow clients to customize art based on templates you’ve uploaded, test those applications over and over. Find the least tech-savvy person you know and have them go through the steps. You need to be sure it’ll work for everyone. Otherwise it’ll end up being an exercise in frustration for you and your clients.
More vocabulary
Jennifer | 10:19 am | January 11, 2008 | prepress, terminology, printing, process, workflow, General
Production works in acronyms, here are some you might come across:
- FSI - Free Standing Insert.
Those annoying flyers you get with your paper are referred to as FSIs. - GSM - Graphic Standards Manual.
This is the visual bible for your brand. Logo and tagline usage guidelines. - PMS - Pantone Matching System.
Pantone colours are specific ink mixes that create a colour standard. - CMYK - Process colour. Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black.
This is the most common colour printing. These 4 colours are combined to create all the colours you see in printed pieces. - RGB - Digital colour. Your monitor uses it - Red, Green, Blue.
This colour profile is often used for digital and new media work. - PSD - Photoshop file.
PSD files are photographic files created by photoshop. They are commonly used in press-ready file creation. - EPS - Encapsulated postscript, used for images.
EPS files can be vector art or photographic images, they are another common format found in press-ready files.
Other terms and phrases you might hear thrown around include…
Working files. When someone requests working files, they are asking for the files used to generate the graphics. This means fonts, images as separate files that are linked to the page layout file. Working files are necessary if adjustments might need to be made. For example, you would send your printer working files if there was concern that some photos might need to have adjustments made.
PDF/X1-a. PDF files can take many forms, they can be small files meant only to be used on screen, or highly specific files made to run on presses. The PDF-X series are common formats used in printing, and PDF/X1-a is usually the file type requested by most magazines.
I’ll keep posting more as I think of them. After awhile all these terms become a part of everyday language, it gets difficult to remember what isn’t common knowledge!
Help from Stora Enso’s “Ed” Series
Jennifer | 11:20 am | December 14, 2007 | paper, suppliers, prepress, printing, planning, General
Several paper companies offer promotional materials to qualified designers to help sway your choices in paper stocks. One great series that I’d recommend you look at is the Ed series from Stora Enso. It’s printed to promote Productolith, an FSC certified coated sheet. I use Productolith quite frequently; I like it.The series is up to issue #11 and covers everything from metallic inks to Prepress to finishing options. Very good for both process and project information, as well as inspiration to designers when choosing projects.
You can order the series at the Stora Enso site, or check with your local paper merchant to see if you can get copies delivered. I think it’s well worth it.
Large format - signage
Jennifer | 11:19 am | September 18, 2007 | prepress, printing, planning
Large format printing is often used for billboards and outdoor advertising, signage and trade show booths. Often your piece is printed on a large inkjet or bubble jet printer that can print material up to 6′ wide by an indefinite length, allowing for a lot of flexibility.
These printers have specifications that are quite different from standard printers, so make sure you check with them before sending files. For example, many will want added bleed on top of the usual .125″.
The biggest challenge with large outdoor projects comes from images. When an image is scanned for outdoor use, the files are huge and shouldn’t be used unless your machine is built to take it. If you are building the piece on a home or office computer, it’s best to let the signage supplier work with the hi res image and supply you with a low res version you can drop in your file for placement. Retouching these large files is a very slow, expensive process.
If you are working on a large project, it is often requested that you ship a file that is one twelfth, eighth or quarter of the final file size. This is easier for everyone, as trying to work with an area that is 20′ long on your 15″ monitor will get very frustrating very quickly. As long as your file matches the final proportions, you’ll be fine.
When choosing outdoor printing materials, keep theses questions in mind:
- How long will it be up?
- Will it face the sun?
- Will it get wet?
- Is it at street level, open for vandals?
- Will it be exposed to the winter elements?
- Does it need to be portable?
Make sure your supplier has this information, as different protective coatings and substrates can be selected to make sure your banner or billboard holds up well.
If you are doing outdoor advertising, be aware that most media companies require an extra 10% of your posters to replace any media that gets vandalized or ruined. If you have booked 10 bus shelters, be sure to send 11 posters to your media supplier.
Newspaper & Magazine advertising - spending the big bucks
Jennifer | 10:23 pm | September 17, 2007 | magazine, ads, prepress, newspaper, budgets, money, workflow, planning
Yes, running ads in print media is expensive. Your media rep will tell you that repetition is the key in print advertising and that adds up fast. So how do you find the money for producing the ad?
As always, a little preparation goes a long way. There is nothing more expensive than last minute ad creation. You’ll end up with lousy creative, which wastes all those advertising dollars. If you know you’ll be running in magazines and newspapers, you should be planning your media and production months in advance (for newsprint, get going on the production 4-6 weeks ahead of the first ad insertion).
One of the best ways to save money on the production end is by purchasing ads of similar sizes across your publications. Not only does this help solidify your brand look, it means less ad sizes need to be designed and produced. This can save you a lot of money.
Another money saver relates to ad sizes. If you get ad sizes that are similar you can “float” the ad. If your first ad size is 5″ x 7″ and your next size is 4.75″ x 6.5″, you simply build the smaller size ad, and let the ad “float” in the larger area. This is commonly done in newspaper advertising, where no bleeds are involved.
If you have an image you want to use in your ads, make sure you plan how and where you will use it, then send mechanicals for all publications along with the image to your service bureau or designer. This way any scanning is done once and the prepress supplier can build multiple files all at once, bringing down your prepress costs.