“I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination.”
David Ogilvy, Advertising god.

1. Just because they are online don’t let your job become virtual. The printer you select should have a real bricks and mortar plant and real flesh and blood people, You should be able to call them and otherwise interface with the company.

2. Use the printers capabilities, not yours. Follow their directions for camera ready art-work, follow their submissions directions. I actually prefer not to have to rely on their customer representatives, I don’t have time, if their website isn’t easy to use and their formats too cumbersome for you to follow, consider finding another provider.

3. Don’t push the envelop. When using an online printers instant quotation and production templates, ie., booklet, pamphlet, flier, calendar, etc, don’t vary from the specifications that THAT particular printed piece has as its’ dimensions, folding and perforating requirements. If your job needs something outside what they offer as “presets” then consider just calling them or choosing a different printer.

4. Do take full advantage of their sales. Sign up for their junk mail, occasionally online printers have significant offers on different products, “60% off pamphlets this month”, and you can save significantly on saving up your printing needs to take advantage of these sales.

5. Keep your independence. Many online printers offer a full range of services, from design to mailing list purchases, fulfillment and mailing. Some may be reasonably priced, some may be significant profit centers for the printer, some may simply “job” it out to third party vendors. Personally, I like to know where and who has my work at all times, and often feel that your “old” mailing house gives a better return, and more consistent service and there is the added benefit of their being a flesh and blood person to call whom you have done business with before.

6. Different strokes for different folks. There are 4 or 5 types of printers. Even though I have worked with dozens and dozens over the years. They all have different specialties and are good at different things. Search out and find printers in the following trades:
1 and 2 color offset printers. These are getting really hard to find, and genuine 1 and 2 color offset is becoming a rarity. They should have a price advantage on stationary designed in one and two colors for printing on a small press. Especially if you use nicer paper for your letterhead and stationary package, this is the way to go
4-6 or even 7 and 8 color offset. These presses can handle a larger sheet size. This is more efficient if your printing color pages and larger quantities. Bigger sheet sizes mean shorter press time.This type of press is a single sheet feed (One sheet at a time, VERY fast). Most efficient pricing comes from quantities over 4 thousand or so. You can have custom papers, custom colors, spot varnishes, additional PMS spot color, extra black. The list goes on and on. Simple folds are ok, for more complicated folds and die cuts, there would have to be dies made.
CMYK direct-to-press printers. This is the Indigo and DTP Heidelberg’s for very fast turnarounds. Pricing efficiencies are only good for the first few thousand. Simple folds and dies may be possible.
The dry ink guys. This category is the high speed laser printer types, and they are every where, when you walk into Kinkos and run a job on one of their “stick-your-credit-card-in-me” machines that’s what it is. Dry plastic toner sprayed out on the paper, then a heated roller comes along and fuses all the dry toner together, thus making the color. Pricing efficiencies up to a few hundred, maybe a thousand.
Web printers. No, this has nothing to do with the Internet. These are the newspaper printers, and some of them have developed really competitive printing on small formats as well. There aren’t many of them anymore, but they can be competitive in some arenas.
Oversized printers. These are the guys who will print your trade show exhibits, banners, office signs, golf tournament signs, whatever. They sometimes live in the “Dry Ink Guys” shop, sometimes they have their own shop. They print on vinyl, canvas, sintra board or just about anything they can get on a roll feed, the inks can be UV resistant and exterior grade.
The crazies. This is the whole class of printers who grew up with ink under their fingernails. they are the letterpress guys, the gold foil guys, the true engraver guys. You will know them when you walk into their shop and the presses are made out of cast iron and there is paper EVERYWHERE. I love these guys, i cherish the one or two i know of. When you do your press kit, and the cover is blind embossed with 2 foils overprinting the embossing and an engraved signature on the bottom, you know you’ve arrived at the holy grail of printers. If you ever want a job like this for your company…call me!

OK, I was wrong, that’s 7 types of printers. There are probably others, e-me and let me know if you use a different type

7. Know where your printing is. You have kids? Same thing for printing. If you use a printing broker to find you the best price, fine, you should still know where the printing is being done. Use a broker if you want, but find out where its being printed and have a relationship with the printer, even if its just a phone number and quick call.

8. Print on Demand. It is possible to print only what you need, when you need it. With a web based print on demand service like Lulu you could print 1 or 500 of a booklet or brochure. The only constraints are your imagination, page layout software and depth of your wallet. A one-off booklet of 32 pages, soft cover is $5.60, presumably plus shipping. A one-off 700 page volume is only 39.00! Pricing efficiencies with large sheet fed offset could have the same booklet done for $1.50.

9. Know what your printing. If you just have to have raised letter printing for your business cards and letterhead, probably best not to go to the dry ink guys, or even the discount online printers. So, In a nut shell here is a short synopsis of TYPES of printing, and where you might think of getting it done.
Raised letter printing. There are two types. One is Thermography, where a liquid ink is first laid down on the paper, then a powder is blown onto the ink and let to dry, producing a bump in the ink. A bit like engraving. Engraving is where metal plates are made with the type you or a designer designs, and then the paper is pressed into the plate, sort of punching out the letters from the paper, amazing detail can be achieved.
Ink Jet. Really only done for home printers, and large format printers (Banners and posters), where the letters are literally spit out of very small pinholes at the paper. The materials that you can print on are pretty endless, because the ink-jetting process doesn’t depend on the substrate.
Laser Printing. This, again is a dry toner trick where the page is “charged” with a laser, the ink is spit out at the charge and only sticks where the charge took hold on the paper. A fuser is then applied to the paper and the toner is fused, or burned, onto the sheet. Its very fast.
Lithography. This is the traditional sheet fed offset method, where an image is burned onto a plate, the plate wrapped around a drum, ink applied to the plate, and only where they charge was different from the surrounding area is the ink adhered, then pressed to the paper, and “transferring” the ink to the paper. this is now accomplished in a variety of ways. There are “Direct-to-press” machines like the Indigo, where the charging plates are continuously fed, each time the roller turns around, allowing for amazing one-off, or custom printing. A print run could be 3,000 pages, each with its own images and type.

Another common type now is “Direct-to-plate” which eliminates all the old film work and burning work to get the image onto the metal plate.

Except for silk screening, those are the major type of printing done today.

10. Turnarounds. This is everyone’s issue. Everybody wants what they want today, and no one actually wants to know why something can’t be done. Here are some sample types of printing and their respective turnarounds.

Lithography (the wet ink one). Here are the parts and pieces to the work and their approximate value times:

Someone has got to design whatever it is that you have in mind, you have to be able to visualize it, and communicate that to a designer. They should be trained enough to be able to ask you enough leading questions so that a design that communicates what you want is achieved. Time allotment: 1 day to 1 year.

Prepare for a printer. The designer has to prepare his or her files for “camera-ready” which may mean making sure the design stays within the parameters the selected printer has set. This can take as much as 4-8 hours depending on the complexity of the design. The way a designer might prepare artwork for you to see is different than the way a printer would want it for production.

Pre-press flight check. Even before a proof is issued a pre-press specialist at your printers office opens the file, checks that all the requested fonts are included, images are in the correct color space for their printer (RGB, CMYK, Greyscale, EPS dou-tones for example), art work is the correct format for their RIP (Raster image processor) and margins are set correctly and impositioning (the art of manipulating page printing sequencing so the book or pamphlet is printed correctly, with the correct page on the back of the next correct page and so on) is possible with the selected page layout the designer has set. 2-8 hours.

Proofing.Depending on the proofing mechanism you selected, a proof has to be generated and sent back to you for your final approval. You are the ultimate arbiter of the quality and color of your piece. Printers generally will not accept responsibility for anything but color after a proof is approved. General acceptance is about +/- 10% on this issue. In other words if the color they get is plus or minus 10% they have done their job. There are ways to measure this. It is their responsibility to reproduce the colors and pagination you approved. If they don’t, they will print it again and absorb the cost of mitigating the mistake. If it’s your mistake, if you approved it without catching it, watch out! You’ll be paying for it.

“We can put television in its proper light by supposing that Gutenberg’s great invention had been directed at printing only comic books.”
Robert M. Hutchins

“Printing is no longer the only way of reproducing books. Reading them, however, has not changed; it is the same as it has always been, since Callimachus administered the great library in Alexandrea [sic].”
Lawrence Clark Powell

Thank you so much for reading my newsletter!. The printed versions I had been sending out are getting way too expensive to continue. I would love to get any feedback or comments you have on my material or the format of the newsletter. Please please feel free to forward this e-mail to someone who may be interested in Graphic Design, or ProposalGraphics services.

In July of 2010 I was asked to develop an exhibit for the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Esplanade. The project was estimated to last about 2 months, since the anniversary was actually in 2010, not 2011!. Well, how things usually go and review and change and update and expansion and everything and here we are 15 months later celebrating a really amazing feat!. The project has won national awards and there will be a grand opening on the Esplanade in September of 2011!

The work I did was in creating and programming the signage system, programming the topics for the signs, researching the topics, designing the stands, preparing documentation for the Boston landmarks Commission, preparing artwork for the signs themselves and scouting and determining locations for the 27 different stands.

I also worked for 3 months on creating and producing an up-to-date and accurate map of the paths and walkways and green spaces of the Esplanade.

The signage program addressed the original design and construction of the park, its’ cultural connections to the West End, Beacon Hill and the Back Bay, its’ history of active recreation and sports, and the Esplanades connection to the book Make Way for Ducklings. The signage program was developed to share the various stories of the park through these themes. These markers are intended to activate the park for millions of annual users and visitors.

I interfaced with numerous interest groups, met with those that requested it, did original research at the Boston Public Library Rare Books Room and archives, corresponded and met with the DCR signage shop, and the MDOT who finally produced the signs on their machinery.

I worked with representatives from The Esplanade Association, West End Civic Association, Community Boating Inc., Sports Museum, The West End Museum, Beacon Hill Civic Association, Hill House and Lederman Memorial/Lederman Park.

Why compressed and extended type is important

To tell you the truth, compressed and extended type is not important. The Red Sox are important, the Celtics loss to the Lakers was important, My kids are important, the pugs are mildly important. Typography is interesting, so lets make that distinction. Type is to read, that’s all, making it easier to read, clearer in understanding and more intuitive is the job of designers.

There are three ways to approach this typographical topic: type that’s been compressed or extended or left in its Roman (natural) version. That is, type that’s been compressed (squished), type that’s been extended (stretched) or type that’s been left in its original space. This is not to be confused with KERNING. Kerning refers to the white space between letters, and it also can be increased and compressed for various effects. Compressed type is type where the height has been increased and the width of the character has been shrunk to provide the designer with another tool to get more type on a line in a document. Extended type is the opposite, where the letters have been stretched wide, lowering the height and extending the width of the letter. This type of type is typically only used in headlines or logo design.

It is possible to compress or extend type in most word processors, but I would recommend buying or getting a type which has been designed for either function. (Contact me if you don’t have any, I can help you) If you squish type in a word processor, the letters get narrower in the horizontal direction, thus the horizontal elements of the letter do not compress, they stay the same width, thus making the horizontal tops of the letters look to fat. The opposite is true for type that’s been extended in a word processor. See example below.

Image showing kerning and line spaceing

Compressed type Typography

More than you need to know about type

Font selection. Critical. What are you publishing? Basic question. Is it a web page, paper magazine, glossy magazine, quick read pamphlet, “for the ages” exhibition, technical paper, marketing piece, formal proposal, or information response form. In any case, font should be considered. Who is your audience? Older readers, people at work, people at leisure, people in a hurry, paid reviewers?

Does the type itself need to express something specific?
Is it a Headline, sub head, lower level head? What should be the size difference between level heads? How many level heads can I have before my audience gets lost in differences too subtle to tell? What shape are the bullets I want to use? Whats the right indent to use with bullets? What are hanging indents and why are they important?

What is white space and why do I need it?
White space sets apart your Grey space! So ok, what’s Grey space? Grey space is the space your using for type, when you squint your eyes the space that the type is in should look grey, not to black or not to white. As a general rule of thumb try to have 1/3 of the page be white, or empty of type. You can also add small amounts of white space by increasing the space between lines of type a slight amount. Be consistent about this, don’t keep changing the line spacing, it will give your audience headaches.

Do not use too many typefaces at a time.
The main reason for using more than one typeface is to create emphasis or to separate one part of the text from another. When too many different typefaces are used, the reader is unable to determine what is and what is not important. Try and limit your document to 2 different typefaces. if you think you will be able to emphasize different thoughts using different typefaces, try using the bold or italics feature, you will get more professional results.

Provide sufficient contrast between type and its background.
Make sure that there is enough contrast between the color of the type and the background. Be careful when using photographs as a background for type.

Avoid widows and orphans.
A widow is a word or short line at the beginning or end of a paragraph. An orphan is a single syllable at the end of a paragraph. Edit the sentence or paragraph to eliminate widows and orphans.

One space or two spaces after a period?
The practice of putting two spaces at the end of a sentence is a remnant from the days of typewriters with monospaced typefaces. Two spaces, it was believed, made it easier to see where one sentence ended and the next began. Most typeset text, both before and after the typewriter, used a single space. Modern typefaces on a computer have sufficient space built into the “Period” to accommodate your readers eye before the next sentence begins

Thank you so much for reading my newsletter!. The printed versions I had been sending out are getting way too expensive to continue. I would love to get any feedback or comments you have on my material or the format of the newsletter. Please please feel free to forward this e-mail to someone who may be interested in Graphic Design, or ProposalGraphics services.

Sincerely,
Robert Hurst

ProposalGraphics

Why does he have anything to say about Interview tricks?

Actually, I have heaps and heaps to say about interviews, I’ve been on enough of them. Now, did anyone listen? NO! But I’m going to tell you anyway. I have spent 20 years helping my clients prepare for interviews, so take out the ipod earbuds and READ!I have participated in many, many winning (as well as some losing) proposals and interviews. I have seen every different sales pitch there is, most of them losers, some of them winners and a few of them brilliant.

One thing that really sticks out in my mind is the way professional interviews are done in Florida. Florida is a sunshine state, which means that professional interviewing for (publicly funded) professional services is done transparently. You can actually watch your own team, and others, interview in front of the evaluating and deciding body right on TV! Wow, did that ever blow me away the first time I saw it. The first time I was horrified, but I soon realized I had the unique opportunity to watch my competitors interview as well, and it changed my whole thinking about interviews and the interview process. Every state should do this.

Generally, it becomes immediately clear who won, and who lost, and why. You see your mistakes, how other teams approach the same issues you have and how they make adjustments for their own deficiencies, how they may have exploited your gaps and how they exploited their strengths.

I will bore you with one story which exemplifies this.  I was with HNTB on an interview for a bikeway project in Florida. We were competing against a number of firms, none of whose interviews were so notable, and we thought we had it won. Silly us, the last interview was with a team who was also from up here in the Northeast with offices in Florida, but when they walked into the room i knew we were toast. The entire team came in dressed in bike racing uniforms! I will explain why in my interview tips and tricks.Interview Tricks and Tips
Want to guess why they won and we didn’t?

Rule 1. Go first or last. Think about it from the interview team’s perspective: they just want to go home and see their kids, eat dinner, play some golf, whatever. In the first interview with the first team, they will be alert; the last team interviews in the stretch run and the interviewers are again alert. Everything in between blends into a miasma of pablum and oatmeal. If you’re in the middle, you had better be good (read different).

Rule 2. The first sentence out of your mouth, and the last,are going to win you the job. Its really a simple rule: while everything in between is important, and fills your need to explain everything about how great your solution is, the first and last thing you say will be what they remember 3 days hence, when they meet to review and decide.

Rule 3. Get your hands out of your pockets. OK, these simple things are easy and everyone should know them.

1. No gum chewing
2. Don’t fiddle with the change in your pocket
3. Don’t walk around the room too much
4. Do go to the bathroom before the interview
5. Don’t drink caffeine before
6. Don’t over practice, keep the material fresh and exciting in your mind
7. Be anxious to tell your story
8. Props are great, but don’t fidget with them
9. Everyone in your team needs to leave the blackberries at home

Rule 4. Be rememberable. This is really important. Most people forget this, or worse, they actually believe “This is our job to lose”. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this, and sure enough, you lose!. There is no surer way to lose than believing this. Take risks, be different. If you’re in first place in the qualifications, showing your creativity in the interview is not going to hurt you.

Rule 5. You can never know more than your audience. Trust me, these people sitting in front of you know more about their project than you do. They have lived and breathed it for 5 years getting it to the point where they can finally go out for qualified teams to interview for the engineering or architectural (or whatever) part of it. Do not pretend to know more than they do, you don’t. Be humble.

Rule 6. You ARE allowed to know more about what you do than they know about what you do. This is self evident, but you still can’t tell them that the bikeway (for example) shouldn’t be on the right side of the alignment because they probably know 6 reasons why it SHOULD. None of which you were aware of.

Rule 7. Study your audience. Know who they are, what constituencies within the client they represent and make sure you speak to at least ONE issue that each  representative has. You ignore the HR person or the Ops person at your own risk.

Rule 8. Practice your Q&A and throw your friends out da room! It is less productive to practice your Q&A with questions coming from within your team, you need to bring in someone with a fresh and unbiased outlook, someone who’s familiar with the material, but not invested in your team. Plus, there are no stupid questions, answer them all from the reviewers, probe deeper into your shortcomings.

Rule 9. Take the “leave behind” of the printout of every page of the PowerPoint show you prepared and recycle it BEFORE the interview, saving the interviewing committee the effort. They don’t read them, in most case they can’t read them, it’s not officially part of your submission following any guidelines of the submission requirements. If you can’t think of anything creative to leave them, don’t bother.

Rule 10. Make the CEO stay home. Enough said. Bring the do-ers and the enablers.