Information-gathering for commercial printing jobs extends beyond questions of size, coverage, coating, paper stock and binding. Mark McCusker, general manager of printing and graphics at Stylecraft Business Forms & Systems/Printing & Graphics, Canton, Mich., advised asking the additional, following series of questions to ease communication with manufacturers—including a few questions taking the manufacturers’ interests into consideration.
Shipping:
• Are the packaging requirements shrink-wrap, bulk-back, carton-pack or skid-pack?
• Will shipping freight be an additional cost, or does it need to be priced FOB destination?
• Will the artwork be digital, scanned or newly set?
• Is the digital artwork created in a graphic-friendly program (such as Photoshop or Illustrator), or a less-desirable program, such as Microsoft Publisher, Word, Excel or Power Point?
• If it is a color piece, has the artwork been formatted in CMYK or was it built in RGB? RGB has a tendency to shift in color when converted to CMYK, and will probably require additional color correction time after conversion.
• What type of quality is expected? Does it need to be the high quality an ad agency would expect, or is pleasing color acceptable?
• After the information is gathered, is the project one that will fit the printer’s capabilities?
• Is this a project a printer can produce while earning a fair profit margin?
• If it is outside of the printer’s capabilities, what should be done? Bid and explain the project’s limitations, or steer the client to a shop that has the capabilities to produce said piece.
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