Rant of the day

[myront]

New client contacts us via email. "Need a sign" 4ft wiide x 6ft tall. File attached"
1 file is a pdf and 1 is a psd
Sales team forwards to request to the designers (2 of us) for file quality check.

I first check the pdf as it's sure to be vector. NOT! Low res jpg saved as pdf WHY!!!!
I try the psd - great all layers! It's 4in x 6in 600dpi WHY!!!
In my professional opinion it is not "print ready" so I reply to the sales team it will take some time to "clean it up" maybe 30min. My time isn't free.

Sales kicks the ball back to the client. Client is furious because they paid a designer to do it. Insists that i just print what was given and that it was "print ready". I put together a screenshot showing the different versions and pointed out the problems with the psd file (alignment issues, "blurriness etc) Sent that over to the client. No word as of yet.

Meanwhile, boss says go ahead and "clean it up" and reproof it. I was able to make the sign completely vector in 30 minutes. We'll probably eat the cost to win the client over for future business. I reproof with a side by side rendering of my vector version and his flattened tiff (that in itself takes a minute of two of art time). He won't be able to tell the difference. Still waiting...hold it. This just in...

Happy with it but I accidently put too many numbers in the phone number. "Fix that and I'll approve"


The sign is all text, two color rectangles and 1 raster clipart. Why in God's name would a "professional" design this in photoshop!

 

[Gino]

I had the same thing, yesterday. Wasn't a new client, but they want 4pcs 3' x 8' banners each of 3 different files. Total of 12.

Files look good, all in vector format, but when I open them, they are all 4' x 8'. So, I go in to see if I can move some simple things around. Haha.... it's a raster image saved as an .ai. I call him back and he said, yeah, I saw they're the wrong size. Can you use a 4' x 8'. Nope. All the frames have been 3' x 8's for years. Someone just did this wrong. I added, yeah and they're in non-editable files. The designer is gonna hafta play with it a lot.

This signs are logos, text and pictures, so they can't just be squashed. Logos and other stuff will look kinda odd at a 25% reduction one way, only.

 

[bannertime]

It's so incredibly frustrating. I've honestly been happier with some of the publisher and PowerPoint files I've been sent over some of the "pro designer" files I've had to redo.

 

[myront]

And just as a reference. This is the sign

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

Maybe they designed it for a postcard or print ad and the customer thinks the same file is suitable for signage?

 

[Billct2]

yep, one of my big clients has a new person in a new position and they are in charge of designing signs. All psds and when i ask for vectors pdfs I get a file where the only vector is the border?! So I look up the person's resume and they are a video production major.

 

[Johnny Best]

You know if you would have done that in Illustrator it would have been only a 15 min job and not a half hour.

 

[GAC05]

You know if you would have done that in Illustrator it would have been only a 15 min job and not a half hour.

But then it would have cost twice as much to do it in AI so it would have zero'd out in the end.

 

[iPrintStuff]

We’re getting round to our annual Christmas canvas deal. I’m already awash with 72dpi Facebook photos and random nonsense they’ve been sent via snapchat. All of church they don’t want to tell the other party about so the surprise isn’t ruined. No way to get the originals but I want this 40” by 40” please even through it’s an oblong shape and the pixels are about 1/4” high. yay

 

[Bobby H]

Sadly this situation is far too common. I've dealt with people saving raster-based images in vector-oriented file containers (like EPS, AI, CDR, PDF, etc) for over 20 years. Way back then I had thoughts (or perhaps fantasies) that technology and knowledge would catch up to this problem and snuff it out. Nope. The problem of people trying to pass off a junk-quality pixel image as a "vector" object by saving the element in a vector file format container is as bad today as it has ever been.

So many people have zero clue about aspect ratio either. Gino mentioned clients wanting 3' X 8' banners, yet providing 4' X 8' aspect ratio "art." That is very very typical. Americans for the most part are pathetically stupid when it comes to understanding simple concepts of geometry. They can't be bothered to notice the difference between a tall, door-shaped rectangle versus the wide rectangle of a movie theater screen, HDTV screen or even computer monitor. Some doofus idiot will "film" some important life event with his phone in lame-brain vertical video format. Then he'll ring me up, not understanding why the video looks like a narrow vertical slit on his widescreen HDTV set. "Can you fix it?" Yeah, I can fix it. Give me your mobile phone and let me crush it utterly with my boot heel. Problem solved.

I really wish I could be a pure, unbridled jerk at work with regard to customer provided artwork. If some dude wants to play at being a "graphic designer," thinking he can do my job better than I can do it I'd like to output his garbage "art" completely as-is. If the target sign is a 3' X 8' panel but he sends me something in a 2:1 aspect ratio more appropriate for a 4' X 8' panel I might as well just squish the artwork to fit the 3' X 8' panel! If the "artwork" has low resolution images grabbed off of Facebook, Google Images or whatever then it would be great to print only the pixels present in that artwork. Let's "up-rez" the imagery in Photoshop, but use the "nearest neighbor" setting for re-sampling the image. That way all the pixels in the image are very big and very crisp for viewers to see!

 

[Martin Denton]

If it makes you feel any better its no different in the UK it all sounds very very familiar

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Oh yea, gotta love the thumbnail raster filled EPS file or what I really love the clipping masks out the ying yang. I don't understand why a person needs 29+ clipping masks when dealing with simple graphic and text design. I just don't get it.

If it makes you feel any better its no different in the UK it all sounds very very familiar

This is the way it is no matter where it happens or what industry. Just people being people. Where it really gets interesting is where it flips. Those that have to deal with this at their job, start acting like their customer when it comes to something else.

Just the way it is.

 

[MikePatterson]

Oh yea, gotta love the thumbnail raster filled EPS file or what I really love the clipping masks out the ying yang. I don't understand why a person needs 29+ clipping masks when dealing with simple graphic and text design. I just don't get it.

I feel y'alls pain. Hell I get other shops send me crap. I am so tired of arguing with people. I inform them 1 time to fix it, then get them to sign off on their crap and hit print. If they bitch I offer to reprint at 20% off. They usually try and blame the printer so I keep a few fine art prints to show them what great quality prints looks like.

A far as clipping masks go, AI with gradient fills or bevel effects export using a literal shit ton of masks. If you bring them into AI it will interpret them fine but if you bring it into Flexi you will have 10,000 mask layers. It sucks ass sometimes.

 

[d fleming]

I just tell them no and send a quote to do it right. Let someone else work for free. The fun part is when some kid at the other end calls "to teach me" how to produce his art at his new bosses request. No thanks kid, been doing this for 40 years and teaching at secondary and post secondary schools here and there when needed for over 20. You fail my class.

 

[Bobby H]

Oh yea, gotta love the thumbnail raster filled EPS file or what I really love the clipping masks out the ying yang. I don't understand why a person needs 29+ clipping masks when dealing with simple graphic and text design. I just don't get it.

The mess of clipping masks, clipping groups and even embedded raster-based images in those groups is usually auto-generated when someone exports a graphic design with application-dependent effects in a format like PDF for viewing or even editing in a non-native application environment. No one is going to manually create such a mess deliberately. Not unless they're maliciously insane to some degree.

For example, someone can create a vector graphics image in Adobe Illustrator that has no clipping masks in the native AI file. But if the artwork has certain kinds of unique Adobe Illustrator-based effects applied to its objects then if the artwork is exported to other formats, like PDF, a mess of clipping masks and other junk may be auto-generated. The same thing can happen if a current Illustrator CC file is saved down to an earlier version of Illustrator. Save an Illustrator file far back to an early enough version and even the gradients will be chopped up into hundreds or thousands of solid filled objects.

What's really messed up is some pieces of artwork may gain even more of this tangled mess as they bounce from computer to computer and through different application environments. When you receive a piece of customer provided artwork you may actually be receiving a distant cousin of the original art file.

A far as clipping masks go, AI with gradient fills or bevel effects export using a literal **** ton of masks. If you bring them into AI it will interpret them fine but if you bring it into Flexi you will have 10,000 mask layers. It sucks *** sometimes.

Graphics files meant to save and re-open in Illustrator are best saved in AI format. PDF also works, but ONLY if the "preserve Illustrator editing capabilities" box is checked. Otherwise the exported PDF could be polluted with clipping masks when re-opened by Illustrator.

This is the way it is no matter where it happens or what industry. Just people being people. Where it really gets interesting is where it flips. Those that have to deal with this at their job, start acting like their customer when it comes to something else. Just the way it is.

That may be the way it is, but it doesn't require us to spend a bunch of time fixing bad customer artwork for free either. If a client's artwork has serious issues we'll tell him up front what we'll charge per hour to repair it. That in turn usually encourages the client to take another look through their files or call their artist to give us something better. Ultimately it's in their best interest to provide the best quality artwork they possibly have. It costs them less money and allows us to finish their sign project faster.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

For example, someone can create a vector graphics image in Adobe Illustrator that has no clipping masks in the native AI file. But if the artwork has certain kinds of unique Adobe Illustrator-based effects applied to its objects then if the artwork is exported to other formats, like PDF, a mess of clipping masks and other junk may be auto-generated. The same thing can happen if a current Illustrator CC file is saved down to an earlier version of Illustrator.

Yet another reason to "finalize" a copy as much as one can, before sending out, while still keeping an unaltered " master file". Now, notice that I said "as much as one can". Depending on what effects are done, may be able to do it for all, maybe none. I do think "finalizing" artwork as much as one can (while still being vector (if applicable)) is better all the way around. Especially if one is sending it out to get a final product from the file.

Now granted, that isn't going to always work for everything, just something that I believe that people should try to do. Especially if it's going somewhere to get a finished good, meaning that everything (at least the content) should be finalized. Scale may or may not be 1:1, but atleast the content should be good (unless there is a further production concern, something won't translate "as is" in the desired medium; depending on how the vendor is able to handle that will depend on what they need, in most instances, I could do that on the fly on my end regardless of the file type, not everyone can do that) to go at that point.

That may be the way it is, but it doesn't require us to spend a bunch of time fixing bad customer artwork for free either.

I....uh....never said that it did.

How one approaches that situation depends on what ever policy that one wants to implement.

For me, what I will get is a file that has already been digitized for the machine (I have other ways that would be less then ideal for y'all to work with vectors to where I don't have to deal with that mess as much). Sometimes that file will not be digitized correctly, or I know some shops being passive aggressive, would have digitized it correctly for when they did the work, but when that customer asked for their file, the shop sent them a slightly modified version that would make it look like the later shops did something wrong (I don't know which one it is for any given situation, but either are possible). That may happen in y'alls situation as well. I wouldn't be surprised if some send out files that are proprietary files for programs that aren't as wide spread use (as in not Ai files, maybe Flexi or Signlab etc), to make it just that much more difficult for them to find the next shop that can handle that file. I actually have a slightly different problem, none of my master files are proprietary in nature (not even my digitizing master files) from programs that I use now, all can be opened with a simple text editor program (think Notepad/TextEdit etc), how far people get from that point is the question.

Anyone that has worked with me, I always mention "areas of concern". If they want me to fix it, it elicits a charge, if they want to proceed "as is", how it comes out is "as is".

Downside to this situation, is that some of them think that I mention "concerns" in a file just because I'm upset that they didn't get the file from me (makes no never mind to me really, just if the quality is there) and that's why I'm doing what I'm doing. I would be surprised if that doesn't also filter to the vector situation that y'all deal with as well. Typically those that do question my motives are ones that I don't necessarily want as a customer anyway. They are the ones that try to do everything on the cheap. Not always, but I would say that's typically the case.

 

[Bobby H]

Sign customers routinely want everything cheap as possible. Compounding the problem, far too many can be lazy as hell providing details and assets to get the job done promptly. The "logo" files they provide are very often the first stupid JPEG image they found on their personal computer's hard drive. To them a digital file is a digital file. Computer files are all the same. One is as "perfect" as the next. Some get whiny if we don't take their junk quality assets as is. But we still inform them specifically what we need and what it will cost them in dollars and lost time if they don't help us.

Yet another reason to "finalize" a copy as much as one can, before sending out, while still keeping an unaltered " master file". Now, notice that I said "as much as one can". Depending on what effects are done, may be able to do it for all, maybe none. I do think "finalizing" artwork as much as one can (while still being vector (if applicable)) is better all the way around. Especially if one is sending it out to get a final product from the file.

I try to make as graphics assets "vinyl cutter ready" as much as possible. For instance I can't stand artwork with all sorts of "live' line strokes applied when actual editable outline effects are far more idiot-proof. It's not as much a requirement anymore with so much more emphasis put on digital printing. Nevertheless, objects like logos get scaled to different sizes frequently. Line stroke effects aren't always set to scale with the object. Vinyl cutters and routing tables don't "see" those line strokes either.

Only so much finalizing, expanding and flattening can be done to artwork. Everyone has to be careful about incorporating new features and effects into designs. Transparency effects were an issue for a long time, but not so much anymore. I had to test Adobe Illustrator's new Freeform Gradient effects in Onyx Thrive and RasterLink Pro to see if they would support the effects before I could start using it.

 

[ams]

A couple of weeks ago had someone send me an indesign file. Of course it imported all messed up and they replied "I don't know of any printer out there that doesn't use indesign, you are the first". I was like wow....

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Only so much finalizing, expanding and flattening can be done to artwork.

Again, that's why I said "as much as one can."

Now, I had missed this one here:

PDF also works, but ONLY if the "preserve Illustrator editing capabilities" box is checked. Otherwise the exported PDF could be polluted with clipping masks when re-opened by Illustrator.

Isn't this "on" by default? I had checked in my VM of CS6 and it's ticked. I have never once messed with it, that's what leads me to that conclusion, now that my be a different story with CC, that I couldn't comment on.


Bare in mind, not everything is full proof and there can always be that one or two (or more) files that prove to be the exception to whatever work around that there is. Some are full proof compared to the work around, that is when work arounds only exist when a person doesn't want to trouble their customer to do something else (at least in my experience). Which has a little bit of irony, but that's a whole nother animal.

 

[myront]

A couple of weeks ago had someone send me an indesign file. Of course it imported all messed up and they replied "I don't know of any printer out there that doesn't use indesign, you are the first". I was like wow....

and when you ask to send as pdf they reply "how do I do that?"