No matter the industry, in order to remain a successful business it is imperative to stay informed about new technologies, new tendencies and trends, and new products or services that your company may be able to incorporate into their offerings.

Many companies that have been in business for decades are sure that they have found the winning solution- and on the one hand they are right. Considering the statistics that claim over half of new businesses fail within the first year, any business that achieves that kind of longevity has certainly earned its place in the market. But as any professional gambler will tell you, past success is no guarantee of future success. Even a thriving business can take a hit without realizing why.

So what’s the solution? Well there isn’t one magic answer, but it’s always a good idea to stay abreast of what the leaders in the industry are doing. Are your competitors buying more up to date equipment, hiring more staff or introducing new products? Maybe they have started to include discounts for return customers or have invested in a completely redesigned marketing campaign. You may choose to adapt some of these same techniques, or you may decide that they are not right for you or are out of your price range, but by attending conferences, workshops and trade shows you are one step closer to making sure your company is taking advantage of all the options it has available.

That’s one of the reasons why ColourTime sends representatives to print shows across Canada and the U.S. One of the upcoming shows, Graphics Canada, is Canada’s largest and will be held November 12-14 2009 at the Toronto International Centre. It includes sectors devoted to sign printing, mail fulfillment, graphic design and plenty of new equipment and software. We are busy maintaining our edge so we can help your company maintain theirs.

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Just like in any profession or hobby, the interrelated worlds of printing and graphic design have many ins and outs, lots of important details and according to who you ask- very specific tools, processes, shortcuts and insiders’ tips. There are plenty of resources to help anyone better understand the design process and its follow-through to a great printed product- from books and magazines to blogs with tutorials and instructional videos. While all of us at Colourtime consider ourselves to be experts, any professional can benefit from a little brush up from time to time. If you consider yourself to be a desktop publishing connoisseur, here are a few tests you can take to see how you measure up:

The first one has to do with color in general and hue specifically. According to Wikipedia colors with the same hue are usually distinguished with adjectives referring to their lightness. This test shows four sets of color swatches with the varying hues mixed up between them. You have to rearrange the swatches so that the spectrum is correct.

Hue Test

Now good designers know how to effectively use typography to completely change the look of any composition. Pre-press technicians must have almost encyclopedic knowledge of fonts as they are often missing in files sent by customers and they must locate or find a suitable substitute for the missing font. This test, presented by www.ilovetypography.com could use some improvement, but it is tricky and even you experts may find yourselves forgetting the difference between script and calligraphic!

Font Test

Now, I did spend a good chunk of time looking for quizzes out there covering a variety of appropriately print-related topics such as inks, paper, composition and white space, even software shortcuts, but no luck. I did, however find what appears to a SERIOUS online review and final exam broken down into eight separate quizzes:

1. What is Desktop Publishing?
2. Page Layout
3. Prepress
4. Printing, Printing Presses
5. Elements of Design
6. Principles of Design
7. Typography
8. Text Composition

These quizzes are based on the material presented by the site itself- so their validity as the absolutely correct answers across the board certainly varies. I also found some of the questions irrelevant based on each printers’ own work-flow and preferences. One question in the pre-press section asks the difference between a contact proof, a contract proof and a press proof. In the print world you will also hear the terms soft proof, blue-line proof, final proof, customer proof…the nomenclature is essentially unimportant as long as you understand the concept. If you have a few minutes go ahead, see how well you do on the About.com final exam.

Desktop Publishing Final Exam

These tests are not only useful to those who work in the print world, they are also helpful to customers of the print world- whether you are a designer or just an independent business owner, familiarizing yourself with the print process makes you a better, more informed customer and ultimately increases the probability of the product turning out exactly how you want the first time around.

P.S.- As many print designers are also web designers, (the two worlds are converging at an alarming rate) I include a fun quiz that doesn’t actually test any knowledge on your part, rather it asks you to check adjectives that describe you from a long list of possible choices. It only takes about 3 minutes at the end of which you find out based on your answers which of the 144 named HTML colors describe you. The colors are found based on hue (how you think), saturation (how much you do about it), and lightness (the effect you think it has). Apparently I’m paleturquoise #AFEEEE!

HTML Color Personality Test

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Though I am a graphic designer, it has only been a couple of years since I dared to identify as such. Like with many professions, there seems to be a line dividing those who dabble and those who do, and crossing that line means choosing that title above all others to explain who you are. This is especially true in the creative professions- to study or to enjoy as a hobby dance, theater, art, jewelry making, or fashion design is one thing. To cross over into the professional version can often be a grueling process with little or no wages, compromised ideals and a lack of support from friends or family.

Graphic design seems to be one of the few creative professions that earns a begrudging respect, even amongst the most conservative critics. I would argue that this has to do with a designer’s obligation to the client’s needs and demands as opposed to an individual commitment to the designer’s own artistic vision. It is precisely for this reason that many designers live a sort of dual existence. Unsure or unwilling to commit to making a living as a “true artist”- words ripe with romantic connotations – many graphic designers have stumbled upon their profession as a compromise between artist and businessperson.

That said, there will come a point in every designer’s career where they feel a certain frustration. Imagine spending hours, weeks or months carefully crafting an image, an advertisement or a logo that culminates in what seems to you to be pure perfection. However, after numerous consultations you discover that the client wants the text to be bigger because bigger is more exciting, and then they want to change the green to blue because they think that maybe one time the CEO said he doesn’t really like green and then the image of the rabbit that they had demanded should now be a kangaroo…and suddenly your perfect creation gets turned into a horrendous Frankenstein- an unsightly compromise between your skills and vision and the clients’ demands.

But, of course, that is the essence of graphic design. So what are some ways that a graphic designer can stay sane and maintain decorum? A designer friend of mine gave me some pointers. “First of all, you can’t use your work as your creative outlet. Your work is your work, and even if you disagree with what the client wants, your job is to convince them otherwise. Failing that, you’ve got to do what they want- they’re the ones who are paying.” So what does a designer do with all that bundled up creativity?

“Every designer should have their own projects on the side where they are the one making all the decisions. You could paint or draw, do graffiti, sculpt, sew, whatever you like…for instance, I’m in a band, which is where I get to let out all my feelings. I do what I want without having to worry whether or not my creative output is “commercially viable” or “appealing to upper-class women between the ages of 18-25.” I think without my band I would get really frustrated with my job.”

Not bad advice. It seems that British design firm Attik seems to agree. While they describe themselves as producing “strategically driven branding, advertising, design and interactive work,” it is their side project, Noise, that seems to get a lot of the attention. Noise is a series of art/design books they have published beginning in 1995 and whose latest edition is set to be released this summer 2008. In their own words, “Noise is the space in which we experiment, creating new avenues for us to explore. Without the limitations or practical parameters of the commercial world, we are free to harness ideas and concepts that might falter in the traditional design process. Noise is the most personal and honest representation of our talents.”

So let this serve as a lesson to all you graphic designers out there. Whether you are self-employed or work for a multi-national company- make it a priority to have a creative outlet apart from your work in which you explore ideas and concepts with the utmost freedom. It will probably make you a happier person and who knows, it may even make you a better designer…

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It is no secret that technology helps make our lives easier- navigating in our cars, communicating with our friends across long distances, traveling to new places without getting lost. We can be assured that our Granny Smith apples will always have that same taste thanks to patented and genetically modified seeds, we can sleep easier at night knowing that the carbon monoxide alarm in the hall will alert us of any deadly gas, and we can drink our milk assured that it has been pasteurized and hermetically sealed.

However, technology is also inadvertently responsible for an absence of the human touch, as these days few things are rarely hand-made. Sentiments for loved ones are better expressed by store bought greetings cards and a myriad of fast food restaurants have made it easier than ever to avoid preparing home cooked meals. Instead of stopping by a friend or neighbor’s house we prefer to send a mass email, updating everyone at once as to how we are doing. Given the state of things it seems harder and harder to maintain that personal touch.

One small but interesting idea to combat this trend is to make a font from your very own handwriting. After all, so many of us are using the computer more and more, and handwriting all those Christmas letters or thank you notes for a wedding seems like an impossible task. What about sending out an electronic invoice with your signature confirming a received payment? Wouldn’t printing name tags for an event or labels for scrapbooking seem a lot more personal if they were printed with your own handwriting?

Now some of you may have heard of Fontographer, the most famous and most popular font creation software. Those people probably also know that the most common Bézier drawing programs used for vector output are Adobe Illustrator or Macromedia Freehand. But most people probably don’t know that it was Fontographer, not Illustrator or Freehand, that was the first Mac-based Bézier drawing program back in 1986. Since then Fontographer has become an important tool for many designers, however at a price of $350 US, it has remained out of reach for most non-designers.This is where the website Fontifier comes in. With the Fontifier website you print out a template, write in each letter, number and symbol (they have a template with accents for writing words in other languages as well), scan the page and Fontifier does the rest! They show you a sample of your new handwriting font and if you like it, for only $9 you can buy the TrueType format (for PC or Mac) that you can use in your word processor or graphics program, just like regular fonts such as Helvetica or Times New Roman.

I went through the process and found it to be very easy. A couple of my letters didn’t turn out quite the way I had expected (a really fat capital “K” and a lower case “a” without a hole), so after scanning the page in .TIFF format I edited the few screwy letters in Photoshop so that they were consistent with the rest of my casual and spunky print, thus avoiding having to rewrite all the characters on a new template. The final result spreads the letters out a little more than my actual handwriting, but I can easily adjust that in Illustrator. I have used my new font several times already and am glad to have it as one more tool in my arsenal. So if you are looking to add a personal touch to any digital document, try this idea out and see how it feels to have a your very own font!

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In the print industry, you have to know about paper- it’s weight and dimensions, of course, but also it’s ability to hold ink through multiple runs in the same machine, streak potential, matte, glossy or super glossy. It is also generally believed that the more intimate knowledge a person has of an object, the more respect that object garners. That said, we have a healthy respect for paper, but we as printers are forced to watch thousands of sheets of paper flutter into our recycling bins each week- potential pieces of advertising, business cards, wedding invitations and financial reports that didn’t make the cut.

Along with those are the pieces of paper with bent corners which could jam the machine, and my personal favorite- when a solid color is streaking we flood an entire 11 x 17 page with each component color: cyan, magenta, yellow and black. These vibrant rectangles of color, sometimes printed over a dozen times to ensure correct saturation, float down into our recycling bins with the same indifference as any other sheet that has already served its purpose.

The bins are then emptied, the recycling collected, and we begin again. But if we have learned anything about the basics of environmentalism, recycle is only the third step in that simplified mantra from grade school- Reduce, Reuse, Recyle. What other uses might this excess of paper have? What could be rescued and utilized a second or third time before a trip to the recycling plant?

Here are a few fun ideas for reusing paper:

- Collect blank sheets and cut into smaller sizes to use as scrap paper or staple into a small notebook. This site has some simple instructions.

- Anyone who knows how to do screen printing or lithography could easily use the colored sheets for posters, flyers, artwork or wallpaper.

- Origami! The stiffer, high quality paper is great for folding. Cranes, paper cups, frogs- you name it. This origami site shows how to make everything from a ballerina to a badger all with printable PDF instructions.

- Apparently many dog shelters use shredded paper as bedding, so call a few in your area to see if they’d like your paper to help keep their dogs comfy and warm.

- Paper planes. Everyone knows how to make one, but there are tons of sites imparting their wisdom as well. This site even includes a paper helicopter, paper blimp, and paper Frisbee, along with the fiercely named Lightning Plane, Sabertooth Plane and the author’s original- Dragon Plane.

- Lastly, if you are an extremely talented and detail-oriented artist, like Danish artist Peter Callesen*, you can take a simple sheet of A4 paper and a pair of scissors and turn it into a master work of art that brings you fame and fortune. Click here to see more examples of Peter’s stunning and original work.

* Note- I first saw photos of Peter’s work in a chain email, though the information was incorrect. The email claimed that they were works of art from many different artists in a contest run by Hirshhorn Modern Art Gallery in Washington D.C. to see what could be done with a single sheet of paper. There never was such a contest, all works were done by Peter Callesen.

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Group 1 Software, a Pitney Bowes company, recently sponsored research showing that consumers pay more attention to direct mail than to their online equivalents. Americans, it seems, spend nearly twice as much time reviewing printed statements and other documents received in the mail than the three and a half minutes spent reviewing them on the web. As Rob Pipe, vice president, marketing and strategy for Group 1 Software states, “These findings suggest that organizations who put targeted cross-selling messages on physical statements may achieve higher return on investment.”

The Pitney Bowes press release indicates that this information might be especially useful to banks, credit card companies, mobile phone companies and even governments. The assumption is that if a current or potential customer is spending more time reviewing a company’s printed material, the extra time spent will allow that customer to see information about new products or promotions thus leading to additional sales or a greater level of brand recognition.

Why is it that the average person pays more attention to printed material than their web equivalent? Perhaps, as Jakob Nielsen claims, because “A web page is fundamentally a scrolling experience for the user…Users often begin scrolling before all elements have been rendered, and different users will scroll the page in different ways throughout their reading experience.”

Nielsen, who has been called “the king of usability” (Internet Magazine) and “the smartest person on the Web,” (ZDNet AnchorDesk) points out these restrictions on web-read statements: “less graphics, smaller graphics, shorter text (since it is unpleasant to read online), less fancy typography (since you don’t know what fonts the user has installed), and less ambitious layouts.”

Could it be that aesthetics play such an important role in the amount of time spent reviewing a bank statement? According to this information it seems that when it comes to capturing your customers’ attention for a sustained period of time, direct mailers have the upper hand over their web equivalents. Just another reason to come into ColourTime and let us show you what we can do to help your business.

For more on this research see Group 1’s press release.

For more on print vs. web design, see Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox.

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