After 14 years of driving a Jeep Cherokee, my trusted ride became unreliable. At about the same time, my fiancee decided to get a new, used car because her Subaru had reached the 14-year-old mark and was no longer trustworthy for long-distance driving.
I heard back from a client recently that the lamination on her fashion color chip book pages had air bubbles on all pages of all copies. This is the little print book of color chips I have written about many times in this blog, and given the problems we have had with the scheduled reprint, I was not pleased to hear this news.
What do you do when a job goes south? It can happen in any number of ways. I have a client who regularly prints a color-chip book for fashion. I’ve written about her work a number of times in this blog. Her product is akin to a PMS swatch book for make-up and clothing based on one’s complexion. It is small (3.54” x 1.42”); 118 pages in 4-color process, produced digitally on an HP Indigo; and then drilled and assembled on a metal screw and post assembly. Depending on the particular press run, my client might print anywhere from 3 to 30 copies of each of her 22 master copies (each master copy addresses people with particular hair and facial complexion). Because of the ultra-short press run for each master copy, my client’s job needs to be produced digitally.
I found a most interesting article on www.inkworldmagazine.com on 7/18. I had been reading articles on the growth of inkjet printing as a tool for interior design, and I was aware that, like package design, corrugated board printing, fabric decoration, and large format printing, the use of inkjet technology in building interiors has been a growth industry within the overall commercial printing universe.
The first rule of commercial printing sales is to listen to your customer’s needs. Needless to say, when a print brokering client of mine came to me with her new client and a new project, I was very excited. My client is a graphic designer, and her new client is a restaurateur who needs die-cut hang-tags for his packaged Asian food (which complements his individually prepared restaurant food).
A few days ago when my fiancee and I were at the thrift store looking through print books of paintings and drawings for our art therapy classes, another teacher approached us. After a brief discussion of our respective work, she gave us a number of books she was about to donate. Not only were they a great overview of the history of art (in about fifteen volumes), but they were also very nicely bound.