2 posts tagged “printing”

So I have been instructed to create a large scale materials packet that includes a poster, postcard, flyer, and brochure. while the first three are pieces of cake, the brochure would take a fair amount of work and time; not to mention that i cant print it on my laserjet because it is a 4x9, 8 page pamphlet. i guess i got the project about two weeks ago. the actual order was to fix up the old files, so my first job was to locate them on my computer. this computer has been through a good amount of users. and during everyone's stay here, files have become ... less than organized. so less that it took me the whole first month of the job to grow accustomed to document placement. in any case, i couldnt find the files. so i ran a full search and still, came up short. i managed to find a small picture that was included in my materials, but nothing helpful. i found a couple of pdfs, but upon inspection, found that they were made from quark files. i dont have quark. i dont even have the original quark files.

so i started thinking about how i was going to recreate all the materials, and how i was going to do that without a usable picture. i took that small picture, and sent it to creative services, who is a university service specifically for print marketing and propaghanda. distant response given. so i put off the project as there is no solid due date, and yesterday the person who gave me the project was like "lets get to work." so i sent out reminders to see what was going on. then i started recreating the files -sans photos- in indesign(cs2). after laborious typing and type fitting, creative services finally got back to me and were basically like "uh, we've got all the stuff your looking for."

i met with them and not only did they have the photo (original), but they had all the marketing material in quark files that they were able to edit. they also gave me the impression that the person in charge knew all of this. we have come to a stall at this point, because i dont want to rebuild something that is already available with a few minor edits, and the person in charge is unavailable.

but what this has taught me is, i dont know how to make an 8 page booklet of custom size. i mean, yes, i can lay it out and put in photos and text and pull quotes and all of that good mess, but i dont know anything about printing it. I dont remember how a printer scrambles the pages for print and sets colors and binds. and while that is actually ok since im not working in the actual print shop, im not really comfortable with it. so i need to go back and reread all the stuff i should have memorized from communication design 2, where we made my book. but besides all that, i still feel the project was over my head. but it wasnt. it was this reachable goal that i timidly held my hand out towards. its like when you look up at a pull-up bar and think "thats too high for me to reach," but then you jump and you feel it in your palm; sometimes you cant hold tight and fall back down, but sometimes you pull yourself up.

i think i missed the staff meeting this morning because i was in class. thats ok. nothing ever really happens at the staff meeting. i decided that its pretty much just an excuse to make yourself look good and feel important to the company. we go around the room and fill everyone in on what youve been doing. which in my case just results in me saying "i updated all the little things on the website and your individual pages, and i printed all the stuff you gave me." but everyone else makes a huge production about what they do, and how hard theyve been working, and how this company really needs them here to do all that stuff. also, they use a ton of acronyms to confuse people and make themselves seem super involved with their projects.

there was free food in the conference room! i had a tiny salad, a small amount of tortellini (cheese filled) pasta salad, and a roast beef sub with lettuce and tomato. also, a pickle and a chocolate chip cookie. the roast beef was quite rare (good) but the pasta salad was the best part. i dont know why there was food, but everyone else was eating so i joined in.

im supposed to keep track of paper usage for my printer (since its networked, other people can print to my printer), but since im not here for half the day practically every day, its sort of useless for me to do so. also, the door to my office locks, but apparently just about everyone has a key. regardless, i log paper and output, and continually lock my door every day.

on a personal note, yesterday i met up with abigail and adam over at cogans pizza in ghent and it was FANTASTIC. we actually spent quite a bit of time over there talking about all the people we know getting married and randomness.