Graphic Design Issues

Back in January I wrote an entry about a particular "do-it-yourself" issue that was on the rise. This time I'm going to write about the undisputed heavy-weight champion of "do-it-yourself" issues:

----- Customer supplied artwork -----

In the last month I had the opportunity to jump back in to our pre-press department to cover for a colleague who was on holiday. Yikes! It had been a couple of years since I had been involved in pre-press of client supplied artwork, and things had definitely changed - but unfortunately, not for the better.

Having said that, issues with customer supplied artwork are not specific just to our company, as everyone in the industry has to deal with them, but graphic design issues can impact the timing and cost of the finished product.

With graphic design issues it's generally the 80/20 rule, whereby 80% of the design "issues" we see are caused by the same small group of mistakes. We've added plenty of good information on our website to help steer clients/designers down the right path, but we cannot force people to do the reading in advance of designing.

Unfortunately, if we cannot work with the supplied artwork the delay may impact the delivery date of the project. There is also the possiblity of incurring extra costs if our graphics team have to re-work your files and submit additional proofs. We always try to minimize these types of things but each order is unique.

Now time for my personal beef:

It's really disappointing to see projects that feature terrific music get spoiled by really amateurish graphic design. I see it happening far too often. I fully realize that budget is often a pressing issue, but there comes a point where people need to see that the harm done by going the "do-it-yourself" route can be greater than the cash you saved by designing it yourself.

Just one example of how the design can hurt your music:

Countless programmers, reviewers and booking agents have said, from their experience, amateurish packaging generally means amateurish music - so most times they never bother to listen to those amateurish-looking CDs. Why? Because of how busy they are, so they just want to deal with the pro stuff. The professional looking stuff goes in the "A" pile for further review and everything else goes in the "B" pile... and you know where the "B" pile ends up, right?

Just my $0.02 worth... I hope this didn't turn into a rant... I'll get off my soap-box now.

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