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Tuesday 12 March 2002
I have just sent the postcard
for self-promotional mail-out number three off to the printers.
It has a four colour illustration on the front and black &
white text on the back. I have printed it out a dozen times
and proof read it a dozen more. I rang to speak to the print
production people several times so that I could nervously
glean as much information as possible. "And that was
how many dpi? And how do you want it imposed? Right, so let
me just run that back to you again..."
I had forgotten how incredibly
stressed print design makes me feel, sending off files into
the ether and hoping and praying that they come back looking
the way you intended them to. I developed this anxiety while
working as Art Director at The
Big Issue Magazine in 1995. I had got the job without
ever really having sent anything to print before in my life
(I got the job because I had never sent anything to
print before in my life - I was very cheap) and suddenly I
was sending a 38 page colour magazine to the printers every
two weeks. That was the steepest learning curve I have ever
had to deal with. I had an extremely full on love-hate relationship
with Quark Xpress (and trust me, I will rarely if ever use
it ever again) and an even more passionate hate-hate relationship
with the staff photographer. At three am I would weep tears
of self pity while playing with the levels for black &
white photos. Some mornings I would stagger home at 7, stepping
over the old guy and his dogs who slept on the front door
step of the office, and say good morning to the editor who
was just arriving to head up the day of proof reading. He
would look at me as if to say "What? You can't leave!
What if there is a problem that means a new layout is needed?"
and I would shrug my way past him, dying to get out of there
after 24 hours straight.
Our deadlines were so tight
and so critical (ever had 5 angry homeless people demanding
the next issue so that they can start selling it on the street
as their punters have stopped buying last week's? Scary stuff!)
that the mere thought of a possible corrupt file would send
me into a state of paralysis. That feeling is now deeply ingrained
into my creative soul and was one of the main reasons for
me moving away from print production and into web design...
make a mistake on a web site there's always time to fix it.
Make a mistake in a colour catalogue for some big ass retail
store and if you're lucky enough to retain the client or your
job then you'll be apologising until you're blue in the face.
So let's hope the blues in
my postcard look like I meant them to look and that I got
my phone number right on the back... otherwise it's back to
colour photocopying samples for me. It's all a bit much.
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Last
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