Recently Mark Boulton published his Web Designers guide to Print Design, a needed and well founded discussion about the variations of print to the new media web.
Playing off this idea, I realized I still find an eccentric amount of misconceptions in not only proper (or recommended) print design methods, but also print production, color theory for both web and print, types of printers, tips and tricks for print production methods, and integrating workflows from your print to your web and vice versa.
I’ve been lucky to work from the bottom — in high school I was a young production artist for a Screen Print/Digital Print/Embroidery/Vinyl Graphics Firm considered top in the region; so my foundation was technical while I worked my way up the design industry to Art Director and my own freelance. As I developed my design skills in school and in work, I continued finding myself teaching management and fellow employees alike in things such as color calibration, how to properly build files to spend less time building and more time designing… and I still find it a never ending lesson.
More and more I’m unimpressed by the level of technical training colleges put out for their young designers, in both the web and in print. It’s a level of knowledge that needs to be stressed more assertively and openly — it will make you a better designer. No one’s telling you to become a master in this arena, but the basics are just that — painters know how to mix paint, web designers should know css, print designers should know how to build files. The arguement is a common one for each specialty of our industry, Quark not included.
Regardless, feel free to ask questions and dig for answers as we discuss building your files properly, controlling your file output, tips and tricks, types of printers and printing processes, file types for print and web — but we’ll begin with Color Science (including brief discussions of Color Theory and Color Psychology), in a 3 part series.