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Rant 4848 Responses
Last post: 6 months, 3 weeks ago | Thread started: Mar 19, 08, 10:23 a.m.
- gramme
So we designed this print campaign for our biggest client. It's a 107 page book and six brochures, all of which come slipcased in a kit. Total beauty piece – gorgeous photos, intricate illustrations, good writing and typography, several different cool papers throughout. My boss and I worked super hard on this over the course of about 4 months, and I spent many late, almost sleepless nights making sure it was as close to perfect as possible. The week before the press check I worked maybe 100 hours. The printer, one of the best in the country, totally dropped the ball on this one. For some reason, the book is about a quarter inch shorter than it should be, so now it's a different size than the accompanying brochures. It now flops around in the slipcase that was engineered for an exact 6 x 9 fit, since the books are too short. This also messes up our layout. The printer also fattened the type waay too much, b/c they were concerned it wouldn't hold up on press. They forgot to fatten type on one page, and it totally looks fine. Some letters are now running into each other. The varnish appears to be tainted, since many photos now look milky, even thought they were crystal clear when we did the press check.
Grrrr...anyone else have bummer print stories like this? It's just a letdown when you work really hard on something that then gets pulled down by production mistakes.
- Mar 19, 08, 10:23 a.m. – Permalink
- Dennis_Moore
If the printer messed it up, then you should be able to get them to re-print it on their own dime.
- Dog-earMar 19, 08, 10:27 a.m. – Permalink
- Spookytim
That sounds to me like such a litany of gross incompetence that I really am left wodnering firstly why nobody went the extra mile to oversee such a biog job on press, and also, why in the hell a printer would be 'fattening up' type?
To lose a quarter of an inch off a book size is beyond comprehension... did they trim it wrong? did they condense the artwork? did they actually go to the trouble of re-designing it page by page to make the page sizes smaller in a 'legitimate' way?
I don;t know gramme... I sense your anger and frustration, but I wonder if its enough to blame the printer here and not look a little closer to home. I appreciate the hours and the passion and energy you put in, but I recently had a 2k simple flyer printed up and made sure I was on press to oversee it.
Sorry.
- Dog-earMar 19, 08, 10:29 a.m. – Permalink
- robotron3k
kay sarah sarah, I say.
- Dog-earMar 19, 08, 10:33 a.m. – Permalink
- Dennis_Moore
The one that signed off on the piece is the one to blame then.
- Dog-earMar 19, 08, 10:34 a.m. – Permalink
- gramme
Spookytim:
Of course we did a press check. We immediately saw that the type was too fat, but because that would have meant pulling hundreds of plates, my boss offered the executive input and the client agreed, that it was not worth pulling plates and taking over a day to reconfigure everything.
The type they fattened is 5 helv. neue bold, all in caps. It's the captions for photos (80% of the book). They thought the type would get lost. They were wrong, esp. since that type was printed in high-metallic spot colors that really stand out.
The reason it was trimmed too much was because it has 5 different paper stocks and needed 2 trips through bindery. Somewhere communication fell off that the bindery team needed to do the absolute minimum trim possible. Instead they took off 1/8" each time through. Apparently the binders didn't know or care that the book s/b the same exact size as each brochure.
I talked to my boss and she is of the firm belief that we bear no blame on this one. I've made mistakes before, but not this time.
- Dog-earMar 19, 08, 10:41 a.m. – Permalink
- chuparosa
That is completely and totally unacceptable. If the printer was concerned about the type, they should have contacted you before adjusting anything. If your pieces do not match the ones you signed off on at the press check they have to make it right. A quarter inch shorter! Unreal! It should be reprinted at no cost. If that is not gonna happen then you should get a sizeable amount deducted from your bill.
- Dog-earMar 19, 08, 10:42 a.m. – Permalink
