May 05, 2005

• as a former copy editor, i don't think you want to hear what i have to say. it involves lots of screaming and fire.
• This is a stupid error that could have been easily avoided. Point it out. If the person's an adult they'll suck it up and do it right. If not? Give the job to somebody else because this person is not mature enough to trust with important tasks.
• You're going to have to do it over again, so you either need the designer to send corrected proofs or you need to get with the printer & do the corrections from the plates. This is all going to cost you a s***load of money; did you pay the designer? Because stuff like this should come out of his/her pay - yes, really - and for the future, remember that the client (that's you & your troupe) are always, always, always supposed to sign off on final proofs before they go to press. Your designer should know this.
• Your group's reputation can be destroyed by having typos on your promotional materials. Being "sensitive" is no excuse for not doing part of your job. It makes you look less than professional about what should be an important occasion for your group. Have them redone, pronto.
• what mickey said.
• If having them redone is not an option, we could always change the English language so that everything is actually correct. Or call it performance art.
• The other thing is that a lot of printers will send you a proof before doing a full print run, so you can check for mistakes and make any changes. You could try to convince them that, since you never received a proof, they should do the corrected reprint. It sounds harsh for the person concerned, but mygothlaundry is right. It was a silly mistake that could easily have been prevented and the responsible party should be financially responsible for the reprint, sensitive or not.
• I don't agree about putting it off on the printer, it wasn't his/her fault. You knew up front if there would be a proof and you agreed to do it without it. It's not the printer's job to correct your typos, it's his job to print it exactly as you sent it. I'm assuming you have time for a redo.. if this is a for profit group, take it out of the profits, if it is a nonprofit, find a donor to cover the cost. As the director of a nonprofit that sends out a lot of fund raising/promotional stuff, I agree that you shouldn't send it out with errors, makes you look unprofessional and careless. I never send anything to the printer that hasn't been proofed by someone other than me. The person that writes it/types it is the one that is LEAST likely to catch the error! A learning experience.
• Yeah the nazis thought hitler was sensitive GOD WIN
• OR........ you could have a contest for guessing the most typos -- because of course, being a performance group, you had a burst of creative genius and came up with the concept of a typo contest. right???? you could give away a, um, free performance of whatever it is you perform. and make the misspeller perform NAKED.
• Oh. You won't believe how common this is. And sometimes, even 3 or four eyepairs give their nods, sign proofs, and still, some apostrophe, some stray letter will jump just as you're unpacking the material and setting it on the tables... Practical advice: have funds for a re-run? Do it. Have 'sensitive' do it again, and have 3 or 4 checkers this time. 'Sensitive' was doing pro-bono work, or won't do changes? Ask for files and material so somene else can do it. Patching can be done, but usually for posters, banners and such, and if done right, it won't be obvious. But, flyers and such are trickier. Maybe settle for simpler, low-key material, printed on consumer equipment? (A good inkjet, special paper and a some work can do wonders). Ah, good luck. Perhaps you could add the (nude, of course) flogging of the guilty party into the performance..?
• "It was the best of times, it was the BLURST OF TIMES?! You stupid monkey!" - M. Burns
• If there is time, reprint and take it out of the Designer's Christmas Bonus (even if it involves rush charges). If there isn't time (whose fault is that, by the way) you have to find some way to make light of it without drawing undue attention to it. (Counting the number of typos is a very bad idea IMHO). Many typos will be missed, as people read quickly and if the first and last letter are correct the mind can skip right over it. I would make some joke about everyone joining you for the public execution or something. Frankly though, it is an inexcusable error unless this is his first week on the job. Maybe not then.
• Yep, I work for a direct mail company, and typos are Very Very Very Bad when they're printed that way. Call up the printer, see if they can correct the errors before printing. In my experience the printer sits on stuff for a while before anything's done with it, so you might also be able to send a whole new disk (or whatever) with the corrections and the printer will just toss the old stuff. But don't mail out the printed material with the errors....
• what SideDish, moneyjane and everyone else said ... Designers, as a rule, tend to be unbelievably sensitive, it comes with the territory, but you have to decide how much the typos will affect the reputation of your group. Frankly that's probably more important than the tender ego of your designer who appears not to have been up to the job. One lesson here is: pay a professional to do a professional's job and you have come-back ... Otherwise calling attention to the screw-up in the way SideDish suggested seems like a good diea ...
• hell... just shoot him!
• what tracicle said - why no proof?
• Been there, done that. The company I work with sent the finals for a business card around to several people, including the client. No one caught that we had the wrong address so it went to print (with hilarious consequences). It happens. You fix it and you move on. The sensitivity of and your relationship to the person should be taken into account when you're jumping their shit, but by all means, get it redone.
• Maks it loook like yo ur unproffefional or stupd if you habe to man y tipos.
• I take offense at what dickdotcom said about designers. Yes, a lot of designers are sissy bitches, no doubt. But most of them get you to sign off on proofs, thus lessening their liability. This designer is obviously a dumb sissy bitch. I mean, if you can, just leave it for the customer to print. Put it in their lap take or leave.
• circle the typos with a red sharpie and affix a post-it note to the front saying, "WTF IS THIS SHIT YOU DUMB ASSHOLE?!!"
• Do it again. Sorry.
• The other thing is that a lot of printers will send you a proof before doing a full print run, so you can check for mistakes and make any changes. You could try to convince them that, since you never received a proof, they should do the corrected reprint. This is true. Unless it's a "quick-print" job down at Printers-R-Us, you are supposed to see a blueline and either sign off or request corrections. I'm not saying "put it off on the printer" but it sounds like an important step was left out of the process.
• I completely fail to understand why designers, artists, and suchlike think they can tell whether documents have errors. They would get all huffy if a copy editor pronounced on the artwork; what makes them think they can do an editor's job? I don't care if the designer is your friend -- this calls for drawing and quartering. And keelhauling. And then quartering again. /another bitter editor
• I've seen it a hundred times. A customer walks in with something that was done "in house" sigh. Suck it up and pay a real designer instead of the person that pipes up in the meeting saying "I can design a 40 page book in photoshop!" When someone walks into my office with a word document with 13 fonts and 72dpi RBG photos...I want to jump over my desk and strangle the chumps. Some of you may not be aware of the printing process, but 13 fonts 72dpi rgb photos is BAD. Bad, bad, bad. Yes. The world revolves around me and I am the best designer on the planet. It's becuase I proof my own work and never make an eroor.
• monkeyhumper, if not rgb, then what? cmyk? grayscale? serious question - we send nothing to professionals, so a tip like that would be invaluable.
• monkeyhumper: 300DPI CMYK images (grayscale for BW images is acceptable) in .tif format are (at least in my neck of the woods) the industry standard. I can design a 40 page book in photoshop!" Anyone who ever says this is to be immediately demoted (if not outright fired) and never ever allowed near the marketing or graphics department ever again. Full stop. BTW: for true professional jobs, one delivers multi-page documents in either Quark or InDesign, or as a press-ready pdf, and one makes sure that said document has been properly collected for output (called "packaged" in InDesign). Most Packaging and single-page, graphics-intensive documents can be sent to the printer in an .eps format. Since .eps file do not cache the font data, it is usually a good idea to convert all text to outlines (warning--this will usually make the text un-editable, so it is wise to save both an outlined and a non-outlined version of the document) to avoid printing delays. Any printer who tells you thay cannot take an InDesign or Quark document is to be avoided. If they can't be bothered to have the industry-standard tools, they can't be trusted to do your printing. Sorry for the semi-rant, but I've seen way too many good projects go down the toilet because some ignorant fool thought he could save a couple of bucks on the front end by letting an amateur handle his job...
• Sorry, my answert should have been directed Minda25. I am sure monkeyhumper knows all of this already...
• 300 dpi?! I don't think a single marketing pic I have is so high quality. No wonder they all look like crap when printed! Thanks for the tips, chriss. Our brochure is about to get a much-needed facelift! :o)
• chriss: I had a customer bring in 40 or so (can't remember the actual number, but it was HUGE) text heavy documents in photoshop. They were all layered tiff files with 4 color type. I wept. Sure, I am a master at creating actions to deal with it, but even with my beefy mac, it took a LONG time to open the files, convert the 4 color text to 100% black and save them again...It was still enough to make me want to fart in their general direction. minda: it depends on the job. if it is 1 color, then grayscale is fine, though I would rather have the original photos because I can convert them to grayscale better than someone who doesn't know the difference. 300 dpi is standard for printing because the dots in the printing process are very small. Take a look at a magazine cover very closely. 72dpi is the standard for internet because the resolution of monitors is very low (in comparison) The real problem comes when people do bring in the bad files and cannot understand why we charge them for work that was "ready to go"
• You may know this Chriss, but it's a GREAT way to take an RGB file to gray... Convert your file to LAB color and throw the bottom 2 channels in the trash, THEN convert to grayscale...try going straight to gray from RGB and put them up side by side...You will see a huge difference.
• Also, consider 300dpi to be the MINIMUM quality of images. If your computer can handle the file sizes, 600dpi is better, and for certain applications (such as designing CD sleeves, which is why I know this to be true) and certain printers, they'll take 800dpi or 1200dpi. Basically, if the place you do your printing can handle it, scan/design your images at the max DPI they can print, it helps a lot.
• Image resolution should be twice the printer's line screen. A line screen of 150 lpi means images should be 300 dpi. If the printer is running 85 lpi, images only need to be 170 dpi. Using a higher resolution than the line screen can support is only going to increase file size while providing no discernible image improvement. The only reason to use 600 dpi or higher is if the printer is running a 300 lpi screen (rare to never!) or you're working with 1-bit images, or if you're scanning small art with the intention of enlarging it.