Design – Time is your money!

To help us keep your costs down we have produced this helpful guide for your project.

Content

Select one person to deal with our designer.  This person should collect all the content – articles, advertisements, statistics, reports, images, graphs, photographs and contact details.
When all content is supplied then we can begin the design process.
All images should be high resolution, 300dpi and in jpeg or tiff format.
Logos and illustrations should be original vector image artwork saved in eps. This allows us to scale the items without loss of quality. (Could also be .ai or .svg.)

Brief

Our designers are miracle workers but not mind readers! You must be able to give a sufficient brief for your project. Items that will need to be discussed as as follows;
•    What is the purpose of your project?
•    Size and shape of project?
•    How many pages (roughly), images, text, graphs, illustrations?
•    What images, graphs, illustrations, can you supply?
•    The style and colour scheme you like and dislike?
•    Have you examples of similar projects you like?
•    Do you have brand guidelines and specifications?

Text

What you give is what you get!
All text should be agreed and proof read before sending it on to our designers.
We will be copying and pasting the text supplied but it will be completely re-formatted.  Fonts may not be able to be matched with those supplied from a PC.
All text is spell-checked but you must check and agree on all spelling and grammar.
Text should be supplied as .RTF or in Microsoft word.

Procedure

For multiple page projects  we will (generally agreed in advance) design a cover and some sample inside pages in two styles based on your brief to agree the overall look and feel of the project. At this stage you may have some more input and suggestions to agree the overall design.
Once you agree this look we will roll it out to the rest of the project and send on PDFs for proofing.

When proofing – if there are a number of people proofing the project then the person dealing with our designer should collect all the changes or suggestions and group them together in one email to our designer. When you collect these changes you may discover that some changes are duplicated and others contradict each other. These are internal disagreements and should be agreed in your organisation before sending them on to our designer.
There should only be two to three proofs or small changes to be made at this stage. If there are more proofs and changes we will bring this to your attention and extra proofing charges may apply.
If at this stage you change the design or brief then the project costs will have to be revised and agreed. (It may be as simple as agreeing an hourly rate and keeping you informed as to time used.)
When you receive your proof please read through the complete project carefully. Check for spelling, images, layout, page numbers and index accuracy. (You are not checking for colour accuracy as screens do not indicate print colours.)
When you sign off on the artwork you are taking responsibility for the complete content. What you see on the PDF is what you get. (Except for colour accuracy)