Finished Notepad

As promised, here is my completed notepad for Digital File Prep. The logo is based on my love for photography and included is a QR code. We were only required to print one page of the notepad but can print the whole notepad if we wish...so I may do that later. I am pleased with how it turned out, but I do wish I could have thought up a more complex design. It wasn't about the design this time though, so that's good!

QR codes: What are they and why are they used?

So...one of the things that had to be included in our final notepad was a QR code. You may be asking yourself, "What is that?!" Well, a QR code stands for Quick Response, and it is just a small square consisting of smaller black squares that happen to make up a code to something. If you have a smart phone, you're at an advantage because you can actually take a picture (scan) of the QR code, the phone reads it, and opens whatever the content of the QR code is. It enables print material to become interactive media so very easily. Think of it like a scan-friendly bar code. Pretty neat! Anyway we had to include those somewhere in our final notepad. This is what a QR code looks like, maybe you've seen or used one before! The final product is coming soon!!

My Notepad

For my first project in Digital File Prep, we are to create notepads. These notepads are reflective of the skills we’re good at; whether they are art, design, music, shopping, sports…you name it! The target audience we’re shooting for are professionals. So obviously the design must look professional, but fun as well! Included in the notepad we are to have: a target audience, call to action, QR code, dimensions of 5x7 inches, black and white only, and 50 sheets per pad. I will be using my name, phone number, and email address for the call to action. Prerequisites for this particular job included drawing a word matrix, 10 thumbnails, 1 rough, and the estimated cost of the printed final product. I decided to create a logo based on my intense photography interest.

                                                           Here is my word matrix.

These are my 10 thumbnail sketches.

And this is my complete rough draft sketch.

Business Card Remake

Yesterday in class we got hands-on with our first actual exercise. Our instructor passed out a personally made business card to each student and told us we would be re-making those using InDesign and Illustrator. There were certain perameters we had to follow of course which included using only 2 colors (1 PMS color and black); a .125 bleed, .125 margin; 1 vector image (created in Illustrator); deleting unused swatches; and creating 2 sides in the same InDesign file. The PMS color I chose was a light purple and the vector I created was a logo for my photography business. It was a camera with my name around it, a pretty simple design. This exercise was not focused on the design itself, but instead on the InDesign file and the packaging that followed. It was a pretty simple and fun assignment and I was pleased with the outcome.

Chapter 1 & 2 overview

Ch. 1

1.      Then & Now: Compare the roles and responsibilities of a shop.

Back then there were various functions of a print shop that were divided up between trades and professions that specialized in each individual aspect of graphic design and printing. What changed this system radically was the invention of desktop publishing. In 1985, the computer became a replacement for X-Acto knives and hot wax applicators from the advent of page-layout programs. Adobe’s PostScript page-description language brought laser printers to life and made them viable output devices for camera-ready art. Tasks that had traditionally been done by trade shops were now being accomplished with desktop computer users. For example, page-layout applications began to replace the separate jobs of type-setting, creating mechanicals, and stripping film. Photoshop became the most widespread tool used for retouching and color correction. Another example: in the old days, designers might indicate color break and now color break is part of a page layout or illustration. Those are a few comparisons and contrasts of technology from the old days and now.

 

2.      Describe the following titles and a salary range for each:

sales representative/customer service

A sales representative will be your first contact and will initiate your job’s entry into the printing plant’s workflow. You may want to discuss any concerns you have about your job, as well as any special finishing treatments you may want. The sales rep will provide you with an estimate of job costs and give you an idea of the timeline of your job’s trip through the printing plant. Customer Service will then be your primary contact as well as your best friend throughout the remainder of the job. If the printing staff has any questions about your job, they’ll ask the Customer Service to contact you.

estimator

An estimator determines job costs, including labor, paper, ink, and proofing materials, press time and bindery.

preflight technician

A preflight technician checks for problems with setup and content. They are often responsible for organizing job files into a standard folder hierarchy used by the printing plant.

prepress operator

A prepress operator uses film strip and occasionally light tables to make your job available to print using computer-to-plate (CTP) technology.

     3. Discuss the following key terms:

Imposition: placing individual pages of a multipage document in the correct position for final printing

RIP: a specialized computer that uses a combination of proprietary software and hardware to translate PostScript or PDF input to a very high-resolution bitmap image that drives the marking engine of an output device, such as an image-setter, plate-setter, or desktop printer.

Trapping: to create overlapping areas of common color in order to minimized gaps during slight misregistration on press.

die cutting: using pressure and shaped metal dies to cut a printed piece in an interesting shape.

Ch. 2

1.      Discuss halftone dots.

Since a printing press doesn’t print thousands of shades of ink, a single color of ink is printed in tiny dots, called halftone dots. These dots simulate the shades of gray by varying the diameter of the dots. In a way, it is like an illusion because the dots are not apparent, unless you have superb eyesight.

2.      Define the following and discuss their importance:

-DPI: (dots per inch) used to describe the resolution of an imaging device such as a desktop printer, and image setter, or a plate setter.

-LPI: (lines per inch) describes the frequency of halftone dots, measured along a row of dots
-PPI: (pixels per inch) describes image resolution. For most printing applications, image resolution should be 250-300 ppi.

3.      CMYK vs. RGB:

CMYK are also referred to as process colors. CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. These colors are transparent so when they are combined on paper, they produce other colors. A printed color image may appear to contain thousands of individual colors but usually just consists of these four. The RGB gamut is larger than that of CMYK, so it is often preferable to perform color corrections and compositing with RGB files, converting to CMYK as late in the process as possible. Many print service providers expect CMYK though, when submitting your job.

4.      Define and discuss spot colors:

a spot color is used when it is necessary to print colors that fall outside the range of CMYK inks. Spot colors and Pantone colors are the same thing.

5.      Discuss registration.

Registration is the alignment of all inks printed on a press. Each color is applied by an individual unit on press so there is a possibility of the colors not aligning. Modern presses have sophisticated controls for maintaining proper registration, but mechanical or environmental problems may cause slight misregistration.

6.      What is Rich Black? Why is it important?

Solid black areas bigger than one square inch usually need to be beefed up or they will appear anemic. The solution is rich black, but the definition of this varies by print service provider. To avoid a color cast to the rich black area, many print service providers add a neutral balance of the three other process colors.

7.      When discussing color management, how do you control your environment?

There are many ways in which you can control your color management environment. These include minimizing lighting interference, subduing psychedelic monitor background, calibrating and profiling your monitor, treating your desktop printer kindly, and invoking printer profiles. Taking these into account will not perfect your color management, but will certainly improve it.­­