Professional Publishing

The hidden difference in good print.

8 May 2023 Stuart Nimmo

So, you’re about to invest in some print-based marketing to help you achieve some physical touch points with your customers. However, you’re looking at the budget and thinking, well I can save some wedge here… Wrong! For anyone with an ounce of common sense, this article won’t be a shocker. It’s the old adage of what goes in adds up to the net result. It always surprises us, when people want absolute top-notch results, and provide artwork for print from the likes of Canva or Publisher. Ask any good professional, and the answer will come back as a resounding Adobe CS suite, in particular, for page layout Indesign and Illustrator. Let’s unpack why…

Downsides of Canva or Publisher…

• Dubious standards of PDF creation within these applications. Adobe invented PDF and when written to the right standards, no issues with fonts behaving differently, colour spaces (or ICC profiles) which reflect the end result are properly curated into the PDF
• Let’s touch on it, both of the two applications mentioned above, don’t have a fine pedigree with nicely finessed typography. The Adobe CS suite maximises the features within OTF (Open Type Fonts), which provides exceptional tracking information on the spacing between characters and utilises the ligatures properly within the additional characters that exist in OTF fonts. Also remember that Adobe was the creator of Postscript fonts in the first place, so the pedigree is there again.
• Colour management starts well before the creation of a PDF for print. How colour is handled whether it is RGB or CMYK (best for print) or other colour spaces. Adobe has influenced and set standards for colour management since the 1990s at the start of desktop publishing.
• The tools within PDF creation for print within these applications are very limited, again Adobe CS suite makes bleed and trim marks effortless, without any forethought.

So, the other downside of the tale is when someone has all the tools and doesn’t know how to use them. Yes, you can have Adobe CS suite, however, knowing how things work goes a long way.

• Image preparation – finessing the detail, and knowing how you make the right technical tweaks can go a long way from average to stunning. We’ve retouched images which needed detail carefully added back in, getting the tonal balance right, and understanding the limitations of the print process for highlights and shadows. Within recent history, it was known to have specialists for this job to maximise the results from scanned transparencies to produce results which were crisper than sharp and visually said wow on the page.
• Accept that certain items like logos should be vector-based artwork; such as .eps .ai .svg and certain types of .pdf – a vector graphic is a mathematical format which describes key points on the outline and tells where to fill with colour or what stroke width to apply. Why are these great; they scale and remain sharp at whatever size you use them. No raggy edges from bitmap raster-based formats which don’t scale.
• Without sounding old, the art of good typography is dead. Back when I was a junior in graphic design studios, senior designers would issue substantive scorn on poorly tracked, kerned characters in typeset copy. The text should flow and connect with good spacing which aids the reader to enjoy reading said textual copy. Again Adobe CS suite allows this to be handled with ease. (also add in Quark Xpress for anyone still using it!)

Design your page for how it is going to be produced, I was taught about designing for the medium of production. Unfortunately, these days aesthetics override considerations of the HOW. We use to have to consider when designing a brand of communications how they were going to be produced. Silk Screen print was still big in the 1990s for large format billboard advertising, limitations of entry-level small format litho printing were totally different from commercial colour litho, however, the entry cost points also reflected this. Designing to meet these criteria along with the client’s budget and also maximising the result.

We can instantly pull out a piece of artwork, which we know has been artworked up properly (or pukka as we say) – it stands out as effortless, it just works. We can always identify the artwork (even before we’ve looked at the metadata on the file which tells us how it originated) which just has small tell-tale giveaways. We know when we see a file from MS Publisher, colour space will be an issue, the colour will shift from corporate colours in RGB (Microsoft’s default colour space) to CMYK, fonts will look uncomfortable on the page, and yes, we’ve seen horrific things to type from Publisher, with additional strokes to embolden beyond Black or ExtraBold fonts.
Equally, we know that the definitions on PDF files from Canva are dubious, with it struggling to define the Art Box / Bleed Box / Trim Box / Media Box / Crop Box’s within the page description in the PDF file – sorry very technical there. PS Canva isn’t big on colour management either.

So as with anything fine in life, the result you get boils down to the quality of what you put in. I will accept over time perhaps the dreaded Canva might get better, however, initial impressions are very limited. So if you’re specifying for print with good results, think about the how, – how it is created, how it is going produced as a physical item, this will affect some thinking. Equally, don’t ask a web design agency to artwork your print… we don’t get involved in web online stuff, as we are professionals in print. Good artwork/design people for print, have decades of working in the environment and knowing how materials will handle different ink coverages. A good print designer / artworker will make very good suggestions when specifying what paper stocks and finishing processes to enhance the end result to maximise the result in line with the design and artwork.

So, why this blog now, we’ve seen some shockers over the past few weeks, call it therapy, if we don’t walk about it, we’ll just get grumpy. So, if you want stunning print, ask us at the beginning. It’s our trade, we’re not agency wallers pumping it to an internet shed, production is on-site, real live for us – real pukka print.

Building authority on your subject matter…

31 October 2021 Stuart Nimmo

One of the major principles underlying marketing and a sales process is “know like trust”.

For some professions and trades, when intangibles are at the heart of what you deliver, when it is about culture, the way things work, demonstrating and unpacking what is essential to gain traction with potential customers. Seeing is believing, even the written word provides this too.

One interesting concept which we are seeing more examples of, is where subject specialists use a book as the means to demonstrate their knowledge. In turn builds the trust on a subject with their audience, as it provides creditability through being a “produced” piece.

Some of our recent projects have utilise this as a point of providing leverage.

In an age where flash, almost retro buy it now graphics and corny imagery are now making a comeback, for look at this, wow isn’t this brilliant etc. The very opposite stands ground for delivering re-assurance and security of being. Trust is built on values and being grounded. So the nature of certain things need gravitas to aid the progression with a customer audience.

We are seeing photographers committing projects to print, to provide longevity, to drive the story telling of their work in a specific manner. The progression of the subject or development of the concept. When online means provides the ability to jump around, miss the finesse of the story telling, print provides a structured manner to deliver it in. After all an artists’ portfolio is compiled in such a way to build, inform and tell the story.

One of the books we’ve recently printed has been a niche market sector customer service guide, illustrating the challenges and the way to overcome, alongside social and political environment which present within this given community. Being able to tell the story in a manner which was narrative and unpack the why and how behind the concept, is to build the trust in the author as a subject matter specialist.

I am well aware of other management consultants using this process to enhance their leverage with their prospective client base. A well-presented paperback book carefully arrived with a prospective client has a point of value about it. Whether it is self-published, published with a large publishing house or even a self-commissioned as a marketing tool.

Equally we have fulfilled and mailed on behalf of an author how used her book as a social media content tool. Getting people to engage with her on social media to receive a physical copy of the book. Of course the journey involved here doesn’t just involve the give-away copies, as nothing is free. Careful use of social and electronic media, then prompts the recipients for feedback or reviews, which then boost the profile of the book in the relevant online searches.

It is fair to say, the age of the physical printed edition, is far from dead. It provides the opportunity to build trust, gain respect or likes from your audience. Where we can hardly remember what we saw on the social media the day before. A book remains on a desk, side table, kitchen counter for some time, increasing the awareness or knowledge of you.

Want to see Stuart delivering this topic….