Customers... don't ya just love 'em?

[txcynna]

My daughter just got a design degree (I mean a Graphic Communications degree). The first time I told her something needed bleed she looked at me with a 'buh?' face. She knows all about bleeds and rich blacks and the 4-color process now because I made her fix her projects so they could actually be used in the real world. I also told her that if her prof had issues with it to call me. I think she was the only one in her class working in CMYK rather than RGB.

I guess schools don't consider real world needs applicable to a course of study?

 

[Mark]

I've been in prepress forever but i do have a design degree.
When i was in school I was the only one to take the graphic communication (printing) class, none of the other "designers" did and the "design" faculty looked at me like i was crazy when the heard i took it.

no wonder some don't know what bleed is...

 

[Odyssey]

Everyone with a computer and some graphics software thinks they are professional designers.

I call it the helicopter syndrome - anyone can go out and buy a helicopter, but not many can actually fly one.

As an aside on the design education matter, a few years ago I decided to go for a part time job teaching graphics at the local college - I had a bit of spare capacity, good hourly rate on offer, and I thought I might benefit from mixing with fresh young ideas (I've been a print designer for nearly 40 years now).

Two part interview - got on great with the head of graphics, (he was making notes of all the ideas I suggested for projects) but then went through hell with the administrators - political correctness B******s, have to be CRB screened etc. 'You've got no teaching experience' (I've employed and trained 9 people over the years). I ended up getting a bit shirty with them and obviously didn't get the job.

BUT, the girl that did get the job, had done the 2 year graphics course, gone to another college for a one year teaching diploma and then come back to teach students 1 or 2 years younger than her - never having done a minute's real work!

Is it any wonder the colleges are turning out useless muppets. Unfair because some of them have undoubted potential talent, but little hope of a decent job as they have no practical experience, they might be able to get something looking good on screen or desktop inkjet, but no concept of what else is need to get it to press.

(Having said all that, I occasionally run pre-press for one of our local litho houses, and some of the submitted files from 'proper' professional companies are horrendous, brochures done in 6 year old versions of freehand, mono laser 'proofs', no trim or fold marks, no folios, obvious typo's, all you pre-press guys know exactly what I mean . . .)

Sorry, rant over.

Alastair

 

[jotterpinky]

We get crap files all the time. Our shop is next to a local university and we have students constantly coming in to print jobs for local businesses they've done freelance design for. I feel like I've personally taught many of the students about fonts, bleeds, color managment etc.

The craziest job I've seen was a job brought in for some flyers that used 18 different spot colors. It looked like the designer simply opened the swatch book and selected at random.

 

[JJLong]

Amen to all the comments on customer provided files. I am currently unemployed but have had to fix files, coach customers, and teach them what different specs are over the years. Yet, because of the economy I can't even get a customer service job (which a prepress background would be excellent for) because I haven't done the job. Hello, I dealt with customers all the time. If you can hold it together while working on a file that is s**t, I feel that you would be able to handle a customer service job.
Sorry for the vent....but I get it about cust. files!

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

had a Company Graphics manual to look through with a job that seemed unclear.

Had reference to several Pantone colours with Pantone XXX C/U. Now if i tell you that some of them were yellows and oranges, you can be comforted that they at least had CMYK values quoted, unfortunately I don't know if the CMYK values are for coated or uncoated, since on those colours the coated values normally are 50% less magenta than the uncoated.

They also had RGB and HEX, so I guess they really had a good designer consider the colours carefully

 

[RickWhiteman]

I've found that the easiest way to teach someone about the details of spot vs. process, trim & bleed, and general job construction is to take them to the pressroom. Show someone how a spot color will have it's own plate and cylinder and how it comes together at the end of the press and they'll get the difference. Show them what the sheet looks like when the job is at the knife and they'll understand what bleed is for. There's a huge, well-respected art school in town here and they churn out great creative designers that land jobs all over the country. One little field trip to an actual print shop would go a long way towards making them great print graphic artists as well...

 

[MickyJ]

My favorite line is "... but it looks just fine off of my printer at home!, I've been doing this for years and never had this problem!" Of course, they came to you because their last printer just 'didn't know what they were doing'

We were lucky with our design school. One of our instructors worked in prepress and gave us detailed books and instructions in how offset printing works, and how to talk to a printer. That alone saved me tons of heartache in my first design jobs. But even then, it wasn't enough to keep artwork from being sent back because I didn't know certain things.

 

[Magpie]

An architect, a mechanical or electrical engineer has to be accurate. They have to know what is achievable when they think of their designs and they have to give guidance to the people who make their ideas work. Only graphic designers can get away with their sloppy designs, and only because of the goodwill of pre-press persons / printers. Still, if you want to help them, most of the time you will get arrogance and ignorance in exchange.
Unfortunately the level of education in this field is unbelievably poor. Some might say that you only can learn this by experience but so you can let's say surgery. God save me from a surgeon who knows as much about his/her own profession as a graphic designer nowadays. Something has to be changed or our profession will painfully go down - if it hasn't already.

 

[Odyssey]

I think that part of the problem is that graphic design is now a much 'bigger' job - ie the scope has broadened hugely.

30 years ago a designer and copywriter would work together and produce visuals with magic markers. Then the job would go to a photographer, mechanical artworker (possibly via a typographer), typesetter, proofreader, camera op, scanner op, repro film planner, ozalid op (anyone remember ozalids?), cromalin proofer, etc , all of whom were trained professionals, and would catch any mistakes before it got to the press.

Computers have 'killed', de-skilled or combined a dozen skilled trades, pretty much down to 2 - the designer and the pre-press op. Yes, it's wonderful to able to do the lot - copy, photos, artwork, proofing and output, and the cost and time saving is significant, but it's a double edged sword, and spellchecking is just evil. Even just marking up type for setting (remember copyfitting tables?) was a good way of checking for mistakes in the text.

I certainly wouldn't like to go back to the old ways of working (nostalgia's not what it used to be . . .), but as ever, the law of unintended consequences applies.

I think I would also take issue with Magpie's analogy of the architect (or car designer etc) 'creatives' have always to some extent relied on others to realise ways of achieving the results they want, (the architect's sketches for the Sydney Opera House were very, very rough and had to be formalised by structural engineers) and if you look at car designers' early drawings compared to the finished product, there inevitably are compromises made by the engineers - and accountants - in terms of what is achievable.

Alastair

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

...and if you touch a graphic designers job, making it printable you are infringing on his/her creative expression and will get cussed or sued ;p