Anabliss Creative Sketchbook

A two-part blog about what happens after the client signs off on a project.

Okay. So, last week I described the ins and outs of prepress production (a sometimes overlooked but very important step in the design process). But we aren’t done quite yet. Often times, hundreds of hours go into designing a project, and you’ll have two, four, often up to ten rounds of client revisions. After all that, it would be tragic if something went wrong at the printer. It’s time for the press checks.

Prior to the press checks, the print shop will prep the files for their press and then create a proof (a laser print of the artwork) that is sent to the designer and the client for final approval. We look this over extremely carefully to make sure that all of the files transferred over correctly and that the colors look right. Sometimes, clients will catch a few text changes, so the printer makes those and another proof is printed. This process continues until there is final sign off by the designer and the client.

Now it’s time for the press checks. When I show up at the print shop, they’ve already spent an hour or two getting everything set up and working with the densities of each color (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) to get the final printed piece to match the proof. When I examine the press sheet, these are the things I look for:

PROOF COLOR
Does the color of the press sheet match the color of the proof? Usually tweaks need to be made. It may take anywhere from one to fifteen rounds, but we will work until the color is just right. Let’s bump up the amount of magenta or take out a bit of cyan. They are subtle shifts, but can make a huge difference in the final piece. I pay special attention to the skin tones in images of people. We can’t have anyone looking sunburned or like they have jaundice.

PANTONE COLOR GUIDES COLOR
If the client has any specific brand colors that were specified either by a PMS spot color or a PMS process color, I’ll double check that color on press against the Pantone book to make sure it matches. Companies have brand colors for a reason and we need to make sure they are consistent across all collateral pieces.

CONTENT
If there were any changes made to the proof, I make sure they are correct on the press sheet. That sounds silly, doesn’t it? I mean, we saw a new proof, and it was correct, so why would I even think it might be wrong on press? Well, it happens…rarely, but it happens. So we have to check EVERY change. Recently, we ran into this problem on press. The client had made two rounds of edits to the proof, so the artwork for proof #3 should have been on press. When double-checking the press sheet, we found that the round 2 edits were made, but round 1 had not. So we stopped the presses and had them fix it. Had we not been at the press check to catch this, it would have been a very costly reprint and the client would have missed their deadline.

Another example of a near disaster avoided at a press check, was for book that we designed. I was about ready to sign off on the color when I noticed that the spine looked a bit off. I asked for a ruler, and sure enough it was an inch too far to the right. Something went wrong when the production department was prepping the files. Luckily we noticed it in the nick of time and were able to fix it and still meet the client’s deadline.

REGISTRATION
An offset printer prints with layers of cyan, magenta, yellow and black. I will take a close look–with a magnifying glass–to make sure that all of the colors are lining up correctly.

HICKEYS
Seriously, we look for hickeys. But not the kind that requires wearing a turtleneck. A hickey is a slang word in the printing business for an unwanted, unplanned mark on the press sheet. Hickeys are created when a foreign object, usually dirt, makes its way into the ink or onto the press. It’s my job to mark them on the sheet and the pressman will clean the press to remove them.

Sometimes press checks only take 15 minutes if the printer is a high-quality one. But I’ve been to press checks that take several hours. At the end of the day, it’s worth it to make sure that the final printed piece is the highest quality possible.

A two-part blog about what happens after the client signs off on a project.

Most people outside of the design world think that once a client has approved a print design, it’s done. (Yay! Let’s mark that off of the to-do list!) Oh no, my friend, there is much more to be done behind the scenes. There are two major steps that must be completed to ensure that a quality design comes back as a quality product. The first is prepress production.

At Anabliss, we have an extremely thorough prepress process checklist. I’ll walk you through a few things that you may not have even considered.

SIZE
It might sound silly, but we always double check that the size of the artwork is correct and that nothing was lost in translation. Does the dimension of the file match what we quoted with the printer? If it’s a card, does it fit in the appropriate envelope? If it’s an insert sheet, does it fit within the intended folder? Hopefully at this point it’s correct, but hey, we are human and every once in a rare while we’ll catch something. It’s better to catch it now rather than after it’s already printed, and the brochure doesn’t fit in the intended brochure holder, right?

COLOR
We always start with asking, “How is this piece being printed?”, which really means: “Is it on coated or uncoated paper?” “Is it being printed on an offset press or digitally?” “Is it printing 4-color process (CMYK = cyan, magenta, yellow and black) or spot colors or both?” Each of these answers effects how we set up the colors in a document.

Coated vs. Uncoated Paper
The type of paper plays a large role in the color builds that we select because these sheets absorb the ink differently which affects how they look when printed. For example, a cymk build of a yellow-gold color printed offset will print very bright on a coated sheet and significantly darker on an uncoated sheet. We have these trusty Pantone Color Guides that we use to select our colors. Each book shows various color builds on coated or uncoated paper, so we can make an educated decision. We then take those Pantone guides to the press check to make sure the pressman is hitting the colors we intended (more on that in part 2 of this series).

Offset vs. Digital
Offset printing lays down layers of ink, most digital printers use toner. Ink reacts with paper differently than toner does. Ink is absorbed; toner is not. When it comes to setting up files for digital printing, the biggest thing I’ve learned—through a lot of trial and error—is that you should always use coated color builds for digital regardless of the type of paper because the toner is not absorbed. And even then, there is much less control of color on a digital printer then on an offset press.

CMYK vs. Spot colors
This question is not relevant if you are printing the job digitally. But if the job is printing offset, I always ask myself if there should be any spot colors. (Spot colors refer to a specific ink color from the Pantone Matching System (PMS spot color) that is not part of CMYK.) For example, if a design has a lot of light gray elements and hairlines, it’s best to select a light gray spot color rather than using a small percentage of black and risking a noticeable halftone pattern (dots) or roping (a jagged line) on the final printed piece. I also consider if the client has an essential brand color that can’t be compromised. Selecting a PMS spot color is the only way to guarantee that color on press.

IMAGES
There is a lot to consider with images. First we look at quality, color, contrast, and saturation. At Anabliss, we particularly take extra time with skin tones. Most times, a publication will have several photos of people taken with different cameras in different lighting. Our goal in the end is to have them look like they weren’t. We look at all of the image of people as a group, ensuring that all of their skin tones are in the same range; no one is too red, too yellow, too light or too dark.

Once we have that all dialed in, we’ll make sure that the image is saved in the correct color mode for printing (CMYK) and that it’s at the correct resolution (300 dpi at 100%).

COPY
The client may have signed off on all of the copy, but we check it one more time. We complete a spell check…twice (always as the last step to make sure we didn’t accidently enter a random “z” when we were really trying to use our shortcut key commands to zoom out). We check for word breaks to make sure there aren’t too many hyphenated words in a paragraph or on one page. We make sure there are no orphans or widows and that the rag looks good. We also ask ourselves—again—is everything in this piece legible (any text too small or not have enough contrast with the background)?

FINAL REVIEW
After all of that, we always make sure that another designer with “fresh eyes” (as we like to call it) looks at the piece again to make sure we didn’t miss something.

Phew! (wiping my brow) So, that is what we consider prepress. Now you can see why we require a few days from project approval before we can get it to the printer. A lot has to happen before it’s ready. Next week we will give you the 411 on press checks and why they are necessary. So stay tuned.

Here at Anabliss, we are constantly looking for new sources of inspiration. We have built up a solid library here in our little creative nook, but we also have a bunch of blogs and websites that we thought we might share to give you a little insight into our creative process.

Check out this package:
www.thedieline.com

Serifs and Sans-serifs:
welovetypography.com

Art, Design, Photography…you name it:
ffffound.com

Letterpressed beauty:
www.beastpieces.com

Rebranded:
www.underconsideration.com/brandnew

We love their fonts:
www.houseind.com

Web Savvy:
onepagelove.com

Design all around us:
www.swiss-miss.com

One of our favorites:
www.graphic-exchange.com

This is just a little taste. To get more insight into what inspires us here at Anabliss, follow us on Twitter.