10-05-2011, 05:23 PM
First off, yes... I should just hire a "professional" to design and prepare a color brochure for the gun club...
Two reasons why not, neither is negotiable:
1) lack of money. We're not a well-to-do shotgunning club (we're a rifle/pistol club, and most of the "big money" is in shotgunning clubs).
2) I am trying to expand my own knowledge and experience, not to the professional level, but to the "simple projects" level.
Working with an online print-house that sends me a PDF proof with notes on what won't look right, etc. Which I greatly appreciate!
So first, I made a stupid mistake... I used RGB colors rather than CMYK. I knew better, I just forgot to even look.
OK.. got that fixed in InDesign.
Next, I didn't have enough bleed at the edge of the document... risking cutting some good bits off. No problem, I messed with the bleed settings in InDesign outputting to PDF... Good to go with a little tweaking.
Now the annoying one...
"We don't have the font".. says "Adam" on the support line.
Well, I ask, I can understand that... which one don't you have, I'll change it to something you DO have..
"We don't have the font".
Yes.. I got that... which of the fonts I used do you not have?
"We don't have the font".
(sigh.. deep breath on the phone with "Adam" with the Indian accent - he's just paid to answer the phone...).
Yes... I understand that... WHICH FONT? Was it the Time New Roman you don't have or the Maximum Caslon Extra Crispy (I made that up, BTW...)?
"Uh, I will have the pre-press department email you the details".
Thank you... that's why I called the number that said "to speak to the pre-press department, call this number", so I could speak to the Pre-Press department!
It would be useful if they had a list of the fonts they DO have, so I wouldn't have wasted my time thus far... but hey, that's part of the learning curve I suppose...
What annoys me is the "phone lackeys" put in the way of actually getting an ANSWER.
And yes, I'm sure the Pre-Press department got really tired of answering the EVEN DUMBER questions, like "why won't my 72dpi postage stamp sized graphic print full page?"... I get that.. really, I do...
But maybe a three-question quiz on the phone to see if I'm qualified enough to bypass "Adam" in India and get to someone who can tell me which font in my job needs replacing?
I'm sure my 1000 copies of a three-fold brochure are not high on their list of profitable jobs, and I know time on the phone cuts into that slim profit margin even more.... but work with me here! They spent time enough to write a note that they don't have that font, they could have at least included the NAME of the font they didn't have!
The beatings by the professional designers and pre-press Forum-ites may now commence....
Two reasons why not, neither is negotiable:
1) lack of money. We're not a well-to-do shotgunning club (we're a rifle/pistol club, and most of the "big money" is in shotgunning clubs).
2) I am trying to expand my own knowledge and experience, not to the professional level, but to the "simple projects" level.
Working with an online print-house that sends me a PDF proof with notes on what won't look right, etc. Which I greatly appreciate!
So first, I made a stupid mistake... I used RGB colors rather than CMYK. I knew better, I just forgot to even look.
OK.. got that fixed in InDesign.
Next, I didn't have enough bleed at the edge of the document... risking cutting some good bits off. No problem, I messed with the bleed settings in InDesign outputting to PDF... Good to go with a little tweaking.
Now the annoying one...
"We don't have the font".. says "Adam" on the support line.
Well, I ask, I can understand that... which one don't you have, I'll change it to something you DO have..
"We don't have the font".
Yes.. I got that... which of the fonts I used do you not have?
"We don't have the font".
(sigh.. deep breath on the phone with "Adam" with the Indian accent - he's just paid to answer the phone...).
Yes... I understand that... WHICH FONT? Was it the Time New Roman you don't have or the Maximum Caslon Extra Crispy (I made that up, BTW...)?
"Uh, I will have the pre-press department email you the details".
Thank you... that's why I called the number that said "to speak to the pre-press department, call this number", so I could speak to the Pre-Press department!
It would be useful if they had a list of the fonts they DO have, so I wouldn't have wasted my time thus far... but hey, that's part of the learning curve I suppose...
What annoys me is the "phone lackeys" put in the way of actually getting an ANSWER.
And yes, I'm sure the Pre-Press department got really tired of answering the EVEN DUMBER questions, like "why won't my 72dpi postage stamp sized graphic print full page?"... I get that.. really, I do...
But maybe a three-question quiz on the phone to see if I'm qualified enough to bypass "Adam" in India and get to someone who can tell me which font in my job needs replacing?
I'm sure my 1000 copies of a three-fold brochure are not high on their list of profitable jobs, and I know time on the phone cuts into that slim profit margin even more.... but work with me here! They spent time enough to write a note that they don't have that font, they could have at least included the NAME of the font they didn't have!
The beatings by the professional designers and pre-press Forum-ites may now commence....
