Designing is the fun part and what we creatives wake up for in the morning. But design is a puzzle, the first piece of which is a client’s budget and time frame. Next comes the questions:

What is your message?
Who is your audience?
What sort of paper stock do you like?
Does sound or animation make sense here?
You hate the color orange? Really? Ok.

Eventually, a solution reveals itself and only then are colors, photos, media, illustrations and fonts selected.

The print production process is a complicated one, and anyone that tells you otherwise should be given a sideways glare. Preparing files for production is a technical and yet pivotal process in assuring the highest quality end product. The “cleaner” the files are when released, the better chance you have of avoiding all sorts of technical hiccups when on press. What does “clean” mean? In a sentence: preparing all client approved files to job and vendor specifications including color correcting and retouching of all images, color and font management, application of any required creep and/or trim and reviewing all vendor proofs.