Graphic Designers job?

[big3b69]

Hey all,

I am not for sure if this is the right forum for this or not, but I wanted to get your reaction. A little background first, I work for a state printing facility and 5-6 years ago we mode the switch from negs to CTP. We still have a composing, graphic designer and plateroom departments. In the next year or two we will most likely be switching to pre-press and the graphic designer.

I worked in our composing department for 3 years and in the plateroom for 6 years and I received my devaluation today. One of our complaints in the plateroom is that the files need to be right in order for Trueflow to output everything correctly. I know that not everything is we get is perfect, but close would be nice. One thing that my boss mentioned during my evaluation was, "A graphic designer's job is to create something nice looking, and it is the plateroom's responsibility to fix the file to get it to run." Now even though I am not a graphic designer, I took some offense to this. I would think in this day and age, a good designer would make sure that their files ready to go when designing something that is supposed to print. What do you all think?

Matt

 

[WharfRat]

Re: Graphic Designers job?

Your thinking may be valid ...
but your "real world" assesment would be totally incorrect.

MSD

 

[plategirl]

Re: Graphic Designers job?

I'm a platemaker for a newspaper, and I get this all the time,too. Hysterical, isn't it? Know what I was told just a few hours ago when I said I wish we had InDesign or PitPro to fix the "perfect" files? "We're not a printing shop, so we don't need that." (By a pressman.)

;p

 

[seejay]

Re: Graphic Designers job?

I have to agree with MSD, in theory it should be a basic premise for a designer to create a good printable file - with todays incarnations of Quark and ID, it ain't rocket science - but the reality is that the majority of designers IMHO haven't got a clue. Part of the problem, I believe, is that design school focus today is so much on the web, that other media are ignored.

I recently attended one of our large corporate clients 'branding days', as a printer representative (the attendance that day was about 30 designers/3 printers) - and the prevailing attitude was anti PDF from the designers and more a case of passing the problems onto the printer to fix. From our perspective, this is fine, we charge handsomely for fixing issues and taking native files (all our estimates are based on PDF-X compliant files supplied), but even basic file presentation i.e. collect for output/package for printer, is a challenge with some designers. However, we cannot tar all designers with the same brush. We have worked with a number of regular suppliers and their designers to get it right - running open days and visiting clients on site. It can and does work.

Perhaps an approach would be to run similar days internally with your graphic designers and train/expose them to the issues and how good presentation and file creation can address them. After all, if you have to rework files supplied by your own in house department, then this is costing your company money as jobs are being done twice.

Then if they cannot present good files, biff them!

 

[libordeath.com]

Re: Graphic Designers job?

Just a thought.

Magazines state file input requirements on the rate cards they give to their advertisers.

Printers post this information on their web sites for all of their customers to see.

It's not as if file preparation guidelines were state secrets. They're freely available externally. Why can't production departments share them internally as well?

Or, maybe the question is, why don't they?

 

[gtgaz]

Re: Graphic Designers job?

This is why you see me asking questions on this forum, I actually went to Uni to do Graphic Design and all through it i knew we wasn't learning what we was supposed to in the real world. Is all we did was draw really and do essays on artists lol. When the forms came round where you can evaluate the course i put my name down and complained on everything. But never got anything back. They didn't really teach us anything. Maybe how to think like a designer and a few tricks. But most of that should be natural if your going into design. I spent 2 years there, and i can honestly say that the stuff i learned there i could have taught myself in a week. Thats how bad these courses are. Its all about money and from the students point of view - they need the the piece of paper saying 'Degree' so they can get a career.

Another thing, we had about 40 students in our class, and only about 3 including myself was learning the software ect in our spare time to try and get an edge. Thats what got me my last job at the printers, But unfortunately i had to leave, and its opened my eyes up even more so to the tuition we should have got. And now i believe any good designer would learn a fair amount about printing so they know what they will achieve at the end of it. This is why i believe i will excel above any other student that was in my class.

I needed to get that out for a while.

Edited by: Gary on Jun 28, 2008 8:43 AM

 

[Mark]

Re: Graphic Designers job?

Some Designers (and especially schools) don't want to have anything to do with training for proper print production.
So many Designers don't know what is the best way to prepare files (some don't care).
Prepresss to the rescue! (again)

 

[John Clifford]

Re: Graphic Designers job?

This is where I have to put a plug in for the institution where I have been privileged to teach for the past couple of years. Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) is located in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and Orange County California. While the main thrust of the school is "Fashion" they also have a growing graphic design school which has good connections to both the fashion industry and the entertainment industry.

About two years ago, I was approached by FIDM, through a recommendation by PIA/SC to teach a class in "prepress." Like those writing here, my background in prepress was that designers seem to never be able to create files that "work" and I had lamented that schools didn't teach this (actually it goes all the way back to when I was a typesetter and would get designers from "prestigious" design schools who would specify their type by measuring the cap height and then wondering why the type was so small when they told us "exactly" what they wanted--aaarrrrgggghhhhh).

I met with FIDM and looked over the syllabus for the class. Unfortunately, what I saw was less than the current state of the industry. While the students were learning design using the latest versions of Quark, Photoshop, and Illustrator, the prepress class had them doing old fashioned "mechanicals." I express my concerns and was allowed to develop my own syllabus, based on my knowledge of prepress.

While prepress is only a 9-10 week course (3 hours a week). I am assured that my students will know the following:

How to make a PDF/X file, with knowledge of PDF/X-1a, PDF/X-3, and PDF/X-4
The difference between raster and vector
The differences between process and spot colors and when to use each.
How transparency interacts and the effects of flattening.
NEVER to use registration as a color (I ran into a lot of cases in prepress where registration was the preferred "black" by designers.
How to create a varnish
How to create a die-line
What proofs are, what are they used for, and the importance of a "contract proof"

Among many other things.

I was once speaking with an instructor at one of the most prestigious design schools in Southern California and told her of my class at FIDM. She responded that, while it sounded wonderful, the only way they could get students to take it is if it were required and there would be a lot of resistance to it. At FIDM it is required. It's not a student's favorite class, but I've had a number of former students who have told me that it has "saved their butts" once they got out into the real world.

Unfortunately, the perception is that this is the kind of class that belongs in trade schools, not in design schools.

Edited by: John Clifford on Jun 28, 2008 3:35 PM

 

[bobd]

Re: Graphic Designers job?

Dear Matt,

What do I think? Man, you ask the hard questions. I'm just getting home from work on the overnight + OT, and will try to answer. Here, have a beer on me.

When i started out in the Printing Arts, there were still diehard remnants of hot metal. Halftones were etched to copper plates (cyan was a relative of cyanimide), which were mounted on cherrywood blocks to achieve "type high" (the height of a line of type cast on linotype or monotype linecasting devices, .9186 inches; guys back then instead of carrying a 12x loupe carried a micrometer, in their denim aprons) so that the impression on a letter press would be equal.

Back then, there were 400 people working in a company but each of them needed to know what they were doing.

Of course, even then those were dying crafts, having been replaced by offset lithography, film based, with halftones, BW or 4c, shot on camera vertical or horizontal. "Flats" were stripped, with lineshots of type, including alternate overlays (think "Layers") to keylines (think FPOs).

I don't know how trapping was achieved in the good old days of metal, but it was up to the stripper to achieve shrinks/spreads in the day of filmic litho. Colour correction beyond the initial separations could be achieved by guys called "dot etchers"; i actually know one who is still alive.

Back then, there were 300 people working in a company but each of them needed to know what they were doing, including guys whose sole function was to plate, or to pull dupe film orders.

I forget stuff, but i think at some point there was an introduction to the work process of "computers". Type was set on proprietary systems like Quadex & Penta. This still needed to be shot on camera to be scanned & incorporated into proprietary systems like Scitex, which was essentially a computerised retouching / colour correction box.

There were others, & i'm sure folks here can add to the list. Quantel Paint Box comes to mind.

Back then, there were 200 people working in a company but each of them needed to know what they were doing, including guys whose sole function was to plate, or to pull dupe film orders.

Then along came a little box called the Apple Macintosh, and some programmes like PageMaker, Quark, Illustrator and the EndAll Photoshop.

Just as each previous advance in technology had been met with scoffing derision "They'll never get that to work", so it was with this advance. And so it goes.

Now i dare you to find an outfit that once employed 400 that now employs 100.

Until "they" figure out how to offshore it all.

What i'd like to know is why "they" haven't figured out a gizmo to replace managers. How hard can it be to undervaluate an employee so as to deny them a wage increase? Or to answer everything that goes wrong "Operator error"?

Perhaps they have, but noone in management can justify it ROIwise.

Even though it would really be just a matter of hitting a button.

Myself, i bless every designer who sends their files unpressworthy. Job security, until the day they get it right all the time. Then i'll be the guy at Home Depot you ask for help, and i'll say "Sorry, it's not my aisle".

Let the designers design; let 'em have transparency effects if that's what they think they need, even though Gutenberg only need movable type.

Give the platemakers & pressmen printable work.

& employ at least a couple people in between, to make sure that the thing works. Prepress, including imposition.

If you want to reduce the number of employed Americans, get rid of the sales staff.

Somebody at Adobe should be able to program a gizmo that does that.

What was the question?

Does anybody need to know what they're doing? That's mine.

I know there's flaws in this post; i've been up 21 hours and a couple few beers behind.

Here's another one on me.

Sincerely, and hitting the button,
BobD

 

[WharfRat]

Re: Graphic Designers job?

One of the big problems is that the "new" folks have grown up with the web.
They are thinking web and are taught web.
I get files all the time that would work for the web and look great on the screen
but - would never be printable.
I can't wait to be able to place submitted movie files onto a press sheet.

MSD

 

[John Clifford]

Re: Graphic Designers job?

One of the hardest concepts for my students is that there are LIMITS to what can be printed. They don't understand that the RBG colors they can see on screen won't print that way, that they need bleed because of the physical limits of trimming, etc.

For me, it's teaching that there are limits and then what the limits are. Otherwise they WILL try to embed that movie on a press sheet and wonder why you tell them they can't.

 

[RoyalToad]

Re: Graphic Designers job?

No matter what opinion you might get from everyone in this forum (whose opinions I respect and usually agree with in one form or another), the answer will be found in "what are you willing to learn?".

Let's face it, most designers have habits or tendencies which are relatively easy to grasp -- they tend to remain consistent. They have the responsibility to please the client long before the prepress person gets out of bed -- a responsibility which is far more detailed and frustrating than the clinical world of the prepress operator.

Learn their habits: fix their columns, recolorize their RGB images and check their overprints -- or, continue to fight what is an industry trend (and your supervisors wishes), and watch your career disolve.

Ask the few hundred thousand strippers and platemakers who are now working at WalMart because they wouldn't embrace and learn to operate some stupid little machine called an Apple 20 years ago.

 

[Mark]

Re: Graphic Designers job?

If you want to reduce the number of employed Americans, get rid of the sales staff.

Somebody at Adobe should be able to program a gizmo that does that.

-----------

Digital storefront on the web.

And they are working on the self drinking Martini.

 

[Tech]

Re: Graphic Designers job?

A loaded question for Monday morning!

IMHO, it's not a question of who's at fault but rather who ISN'T!

1) Schools not teaching what is current for this our industry—Why? We have teachers who already fell behind software updates. Can you blame them when Quark/Adobe releases full versions within 24/36 months? This is a cycle that will only further divide those with knowledge vs those who don't. No one benefits when new apps are roll out so fast for profit reasons and does not always improve workflow when patches is all we need.

2) Designers are paid peanuts. Seriously they do, especially entry level designers.... there is so little incentive for them to learn new softwares when they can barely put food on table after 4-yr degree. New designers are expected to have "working knowledge" of print/web/interactive... if you aren't sharp to start out... most don't last long enough to make a senior designer. Irony is that higher level designers aren't 100% more knowledgeable and most senior designers don't really know well enough to teach the younger generation.

If you know a designers who will is willing to learn, take the time to help him/her. Good karma will serve you some good later on.

3) We consistently shooting ourselves in the foot... we need to have good & affordable products/service to compete against oversea printers, yet our industry keeps reducing pre press staff and accepts nothing to PDFX files. Automatic preflight system kicks out any PDF files that can't run on press (who does this? check RR Donnelley out!) and hold the jobs for another day or two until clients can figure out what fix. Try sending some nasty-poorly constructed native files oversea and you'll see their pre press bend over backwards to fix anything to make it work.

It's a nasty cycle, and will last until last man standing or until print is dead... Our employers don't care enough about us, the last supervisor I had whom actually taught me anything new was at least 6 years ago.

 

[EricE]

Re: Graphic Designers job?

Matt,

I've only been in this game for 16 years but here's my take. All graphic designers should work in a print shop for at least two years before releasing their creativity to the world. As Prepress Systems Administrator I have the honor of seeing and reviewing EVERY digital file we print. I've seen layouts from designers around the world for 9 years now and I can tell which ones really care about their work. I can even tell when a company switches designers, they don't have to tell me, I can see from the quality of the work.

Knowing the entire print process or how to run a press is probably excessive, however knowing the boundaries and limitations of the print world is essential. The whys, whens, ifs and how comes are a necessity. If I design a piece I do not want anyone else to touch/alter it to make it work. That's my responsibility as the designer. I would hate to see how someone else "fix" some of the effects I've created. Sure I've pushed the envelope and have done some things that made InDesign CS3 shudder (BTW Quark would've been found in the corner crying for mercy), but the end result printed on press as I envisioned.

I had the honor of judging a design competition where the participants had 90 minutes to complete the mock job. Criteria for successful completion were laid out in a series of steps on a printed sheet. One person, after 20 minutes, said, "Am I done?" I replied, "Did you complete all the steps?" She spent another 10 minutes looking over the list and changing a couple of things. "Am I done?" If I were a perspective employer my response would have been, "Yes, you're done. You may leave."

 

[Tech]

Re: Graphic Designers job?

I fully agree, ideally we would want all designers to have print shop/pre press experience and learn all limits regarding print products. What isn't possible though is who has the time to teach them? You can spent 3-5 years at any job and not learn anything new depending on how much you and if employer pushes you in the right direction.

For every good designer who takes good care of their files, you can bet most learned the stuff on their own and not necessarily at work. Workplace at best provides real world situations, but one still need to take the extra effort on learning and resolving issues on their own.

 

[EricE]

Re: Graphic Designers job?

My feeling is that education, no matter when or where it happens is up to the individual to take the reins. If someone want's to bop from shop to shop every year, that's their decision. They will probably only get a basic look of what goes on at each particular place. I've had two employers in 16 years. I was with my first employer for 7 years and 9 years currently. In both companies I was/am considered a professional, knowledgeable and reliable employee. I've applied my design skills whenever and wherever I can. Because of that I was noticed by others in the company and now I'm finishing a set of new marketing pieces to showcase our new press' abilities along with community projects and United Way promotions.

I do feel for school teachers and college instructors. I've only heard of a few courses that truly capture the "real world" feel. They can't rely on a standard syllabus because the design/print industry changes every year, as does the software.

 

[gordo]

Re: Graphic Designers job?

Below is a short letter to the editor that appeared almost 85 years ago on the topic of graphic arts training - it could have been written yesterday.
"Because I have recently declared in one of our daily papers that our system of art and graphic art education is wrong, I have been plunged, immersed, turned over and over, in hot water.
It is essential that the school of art must give the commercial artist the right preliminary training. And what should that be?
The first step is a change of outlook. It is critical that the student artist be taught that his skills must first of all serve the needs of commerce.
The next step towards making the complete commercial artist is to enable him to become thoroughly acquainted with the methods of production. One of the most serious defects in the present system is that students are pouring from the schools to join the army of work seekers and find themselves but ill-equipped to do the work they seek. Young artists who know nothing of the means by which their ideas have to be produced. It is not just now easy for them to obtain inside knowledge. Manufacturers are secretive -- and often look on the creative artist with suspicion and even contempt.
The art masters, the students, the printers, and manufacturers must learn to understand each other and work together.
Equip the student with the right point of view towards commerce, the right perspective, and the right technical training, and commercial art will attain new heights of achievement. And print manufacturers themselves will profit by this new relationship with the creative artist through more efficient production methods and happier results for all."

- Charles A. Farmer
- Published in Commercial Art First Series - 1923
After 80 some years, it appears that the old adage that "the more things change - the more they stay the same" still applies.

best, gordo

 

[Andy D]

Re: Graphic Designers job?

I remember in my second year year of college for Print Media, they started teaching the 1st year graphic design students press room fundamentals. They got to print jobs they designed, were instructed by our teachers, and ran the presses ( well duplicators..) themselves.
We all thought that was a pretty cool idea, and certainly beneficial for both camps, but then one of the design students managed to put something other than a sheet of paper through the press, breaking it, and that was the end of designers in the press room...

 

[trebark1]

Re: Graphic Designers job?

Who ever evaluated you is totally confused in regard to an ad designers role in printing.

1. you need to have a creative edge for sure.

2. If you can't produce and ad that is press ready then seek out the necessary training, if you plan on changing jobs, you won't get hired with the mindset of your evaluator. (as a qualified ad desgner)

3.The print environment today requires designed ads free of rgb color, fonts need to be embedded, and in most cases printers now want pdfs, prepared correctly.

Dumping files to the plateroom with problems is insane.