#DTP gone bad!
52 messages in this thread
Wait a Minute! Tripp, if "most" dtpers can't tell Garamond from Times and
couldn't care less, who the heck is buying all these fonts? Maybe they
don't complain about the "cut" of faces, like Kathleen or I might, but if
they're buying something that isn't built into their printer they are
definitely seeking something, and that something is a "look". It seems to
me that there are a lot of people who've first been introduced to type
aesthetics via dtp and are willingly educating themselves about these kinds
of issues. What kind of work is it you do that you don't care how your type
looks? And if you don't care, do you do all your documents in Courier?
Granted there are issues beyond the purely aesthetic, but aesthetics are
the first determining factor, if you ask me. For most jobs, you have in
mind a certain kind of face you are looking for. You decide which face(s)
best matches what you seek. Then you see which vendors offer that face or
something close to it, and then you seek out other things, such as is it
Type 1, is it hinted, how fast will it output, depending on what kind of
work you are doing (are you a service bureau or a designer, going low-res
or high).
Actually, I was just trying to get a rise out of Kathleen… instead got
one out of you. For the record, I've been in advertising typography for 15
years now. Our clients are all major ad agencies and Fortune 100 companies.
They are *very* demanding. Given that background, obviously I care about
what type looks like. Given the realities of DTP, most people in my
position feel that type quality took a major dive with the introduction of
DTP. The cuts have often been "regularized" to improve their look on
low-rez devices. Kern pairs are too few and poorly defined. Many DTPers let
their documents default out the window and wind up with lousey hyphenation,
crummy rags, bad letterspacing and worse word spacing. These are facts …
I run out 100+ pages of other people's work every day. 90% of them are
poorly done. 10% are done by people who take meticulous care in producing
their documents. My point was not to slam DTP in general, merely to say
that most DTP users don't really care about the cut of a face and it is
therefor not a real issue in the market place. If it *were* an issue, you
wouldn't see so many Adobe fonts out there … there are other foundries
who do a much better job. Other than that, I enjoy razzing Kathleen about
DTP in general… Another point: These days I work exclusively with DTP
applications and I enjoy it. There are many things I wish for in terms of
quality, but I'm certainly not advocating a return to pre-DTP technology.
And one last point: who's buying all the fonts? My bet is service bureaus
account for the lion's share. We've got close to $30,000 in Adobe fonts
alone. You lump *all* our DTP clients together, and they don't come close
to that.
>>you wouldn't see so many Adobe fonts out there … there are other
>>foundries who do a much better job.
Could you say more about this? I'm not trying to pick a fight, just trying
to make up my first font shopping list. Currently I can use only ATM
compatible fonts and Bitstream "type f" fonts (I use a GCC PLP printer).
TTT
Unfortunately, I'd have to recommend Adobe fonts. They work with ATM, every
service bureau worth its salt has them and that's that. I've yet to hear
from an Art Director who complained about the cut of Adobe fonts and
frankly, I just don't think Mr. & Ms. J.Q. Public would notice one way or
the other. Our basic rule is this: Buy Adobe first … if they don't have
the font, buy it where you can. Bitstream fonts don't work with ATM and
look horrible on the LaserWriter if you bought the hi-rez versions. If you
plan to use service bureaus at all, buy Adobe. Period. (Others may
disagree.) If you don't use service bureaus, buy whatever you want to.
Bitstream has a lot of nice PS fonts that Adobe has not yet cut. So does
Monotype. Joe Treacy is also cutting some nice looking stuff (Treacy
Faces). The bottom line is how transportable do you want your files to be?
If you need transportable files, use Adobe fonts since they have the
largest installed base. Most service bureaus are not willing to buy the
entire Adobe collection *plus* the entire Monotype library, etc. At $10 a
page, we generally settle on buying the entire Adobe library and a few
extra faces from others as needed.
Thanks Tripp.
I've gotten the message about Adobe fonts for service bureau work pretty
clearly. However, I've never used a service bureau, and if I ever do it
will be very, very rarely. I'm a 100 percent "low-res" output person (as
much as it burns me to describe my precious, my wonderful 300 dpi laser
printer as "low resolution."
TTT
(What's worse of course is the fact that I can see the difference, although
I'm trying _not_ to become more sensitive. There's no reasonable prospect
of a 500 dpi printer in my future, at least not in the first part of the
decade.)
TTT
If your work is primarily 300 dpi, then you'd also want to stick with Adobe
faces, because, as a group, they look better at that resolution than do the
others.
P.S. Higher-res laser printers aren't necessarily the answer. Check out the
type in Publish!'s review of LaserMaster 1,000×1,000 printer for proof.
Let's give LaserMaster a chance to find out what went wrong on that page
before jumping to conclusions, shall we? They're generally a serious and
responsible outfit.
Tripp,
Hear, hear (here, here?). I agree that DTP (Dirty-Toilet-Paper) has let a
lot of sloppy people loose setting type who have absolutely no business
doing so (and in some cases have made a business of doing so!!!). We run a
service bureau and get the same 90% poorly done pages. Oh well–except when
people think it is our equipment that is to blame for poorly composed pages
(which is on my Top-Ten list of reasons to take up flipping burgers at
Micky D's for a living). I would argue that the cut of a face is not nearly
so important as the layout that face is found in. Somethings scream DTP at
me cause I know it is an ugly Adobe face, but most stuff that screams DTP
at me is because of the layout. I am also fairly nearsighted and therefore
can't really see the finer points of a cut in the finer point sizes.
Bruce/AGS
Occassionally, I have to remind myself that DTP is a very new technology
and the people using it are also new to producing typeset pages. I know
when I first started setting type, I certainly did a crummy job of it. The
same holds true for DTP. It is my hope that as people become more
experienced with the various DTP products that they will start producing
better looking pages. Already, some of our clients (unfortunately a
minority) have made the transition from schlock to quality stuff.
Eventually, our corporate clients will come to realize that "Yes, Virginia,
we *DO* need proof readers…" If I had to choose just *one* thing that
corporate DTP users could do to improve their work it would be to hire a
proof reader! Eventually, I expect the DTP market to sort itself out the
same way traditional typesetting did: there will be those who produce
quality work at a premium price, and those who do "good enough" work for a
lesser price. It is also my sincere hope that most DTP users will
eventually discover what an em dash is and forsake the use of double
hyphens…
..and discover where the "real quotes" are and forsake the use of feet (')
and inches (") marks…
..not to mention APOSTROPHES! If I see one more prime mark where and
apostrohe should be, I'm gonna xerox the page in the Mac owner's amnual
that describes where the apostrophe is and start stapling it to some art
directors' foreheads!
–Bill
Bill,
Thank MacGod for Word 4 and "Smart Quotes" and PageMaker's and Quark's
convert quotes features, now it's if only art directors could figure out
where _those_ check boxes are!
Bruce/AGS
Bill,
APOSTROPHES are the worst! It's amazing how many times you see them in
headlines (typically in ads in computer publications like MacWeek) where
they just jump out!
^Steve^
Steve, and Bruce and Jon and everyone else who's been in on this thread–
Though we've been having a bit of fun with people who can't find quotes and
em dashes and such, I'm sitting here now feeling just a little bit sad and
confused, and even a little distressed.
One of our largest customers–in terms of both traditional typography *and*
PostScript services–has opted to keep even more of their work in house on
a Mac platform. Fair enough–given the state of the technology and the size
of the operation (they're one of the world's three largest pharmaceutical
firms), they'd be nuts not to. I don't–for a minute–share the feelings of
some typographers that desktop can never ever duplicate dedicated
typesetting.
What I do have a problem with it their approach to implementation. They've
come up with a new, monthly newletter, and have decided that with Issue #2,
they're going to job it out to freelance "desktop designers", and send it
to us for imaging. Tonight, they sent it in.
It was, in short and without question, one of the worst-looking pieces of
*anything* I've ever seen. Every period followed by a double word space.
Paragraphs that were imported and then edited in PageMaker started with
true open quotes and ended with double primes. Some em dashes preceded and
followed by a word space. Some preceded by one space and followed by *two*.
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But the pull quotes were obviously keyed in PageMaker, because they
contained double hyphens surrounded by word spaces.
I could go on and on about absolutely atrocious rags, hyphenation that
defied both English and algorithmic logic, widows, orphans, and so on.
Worse, photo boxes drawn with four single rules–none of which butted–and
then capped with another, green, rule which was a full 1/32" away from the
box it was uspposed to butt up against.
And during the week it took their "freelance designer" to create this
masterpiece, she'd call me at least daily to find out how to do such and
so.
My bitch isn't that the freelancer is going to get money that we used to
get for typesetting–by the time we separated it, sorted it out, waded
through the six diskettes (!) the designer sent in, imaged the ten pages
(twice, with film overlays), we've charged a *lot* of money. In fact,
almost as much as it cost to have us set Issue #1 from the get-go. BTW, I
laid out, set and imaged Issue #1 myself, in PageMaker, in less than eight
hours. That took one PageMaker file, one FreeHand file, and the
FreeHand.EPS file, totalling about 600K. Tonight's abortion totalled 31
files; 3.2 megabytes.
And it absolutely looked like hell.
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[Continued]
I don't know–perhaps I take it all too seriously. But it pains me–a
lot–to see a technology that is supposed to release an individual's
creativity and power of expression so abysmally abused. What looked good,
and cost a total of about $1100 the first time around, looks horrible and
will cost anywhere from two to three times as much the second time around.
The person supervising the corporate communications department? Suggesting
to her that perhaps something is amiss would be tantamount to telling her
that maybe her ego should take a flying leap, and I suppose that if they're
willing to pay for it that I should just keep my mouth shut.
It's not that they don't know what good work looks like–they do, and
routinely demand it from us and other vendors. It's just…it's
just…hell, I don't know *what* it is.
Anyway, thanks for letting me get it out.
–Bill
BTW, Steve, it was great to finally get to talk to you today. Thanks for
everything…
Bill,
We have this same problem with a local hospital. They spent $15,000 on
an in-house Ventura DTP system, and now have to get their "money's worth"
out of it. That means that they do the entire job in VP, and then sent it
to us as laserwriter pages, which we *completely redo* in QuarkXPress,
fixing *all* of the things you mentioned, then lino it out and print for
them. It's truly bizarre, but it satisfys the beaurocrats… (sp?)
–Thom
Whew, Bill,
I guess a Compuserve forum can serve the function of a therapy group too
<grin>. (Sometimes we just have to let it out.)
I understand your frustration at seeing such a bad job coming in from an
old customer. Hopefully the person supervising the corporate communications
department will recognize it too. If not, oh well, there's probably not
much you can do.
Good to talk to you too.
^Steve^
Hey Bill:
LIGHTEN UP!
Your drug company client is obviously just doing this to encourage you to
develop an ulcer. They probably figure the $1,100 they've wasted will be
recouped in ulcer medicine within two years (a fine payback schedule,
worthy of the MBA the company probably has who is developing these fiendish
plots). Even sooner if they can take Tripp along with you (but he's too
mellow to get this upset).
Meanwhile, I've got to head into work where I'll probably be stripping in
Berling into a client's Quark job for the fourth night in a row because (A)
he wouldn't let me just reset the job on the Quadex (B) he didn't want to
wait while I tried to get a Berling PS font and (C) he assured me he would
only need one pass on this job, so it was worth the two hours of stripping
needed to save his Quark file (which didn't look all that hot in the first
place).
–jon
Bill,
What companies will do because they _think_ they'll save time and/or money!
Going in-house was not their mistake, as you indicate. Hiring an obviously
inexperienced and unqualified designer was. And you'll probably be called
in to justify your bill because her work was _supposed_ to make your end
less costly.
Although, I'm not in DTP as a business, I use aspects of DTP to promote and
enhance my business image. Of course, I don't get as technical as you
would, and I have saved money rolling my own, but I empathize with your sad
experiences. I _have_ found, though, that a client is frequently thankful
to know that something is wrong so they can fix it before it goes higher
up. If they catch the extra expense now, they won't have a huge difference
between budget v. actual at the end of the month (or quarter) to account
for.
If the person coordinating has time, perhaps you could offer to show her
exactly how you had to resect the document to make it right. Make yourself
part of the solution. Be as reasonable with her as you've been in your
msg. here. If you make sure she knows that you're working _with_ her and
not just pointing out deficiencies in her system, she'll probably
appreciate your candor. Perhaps you could locate a qualified and skilled
DTPer on this forum (or Working from Home <GO WORK> forum) to refer her to.
Let her know that you're willing to work with a desktop designer–as long
as they're able to give her the results she expects.
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I have a consulting business and have never had a client resent my pointing
out deficiencies in the system because I _never_ just point up the
problems. I always try to offer a solution or suggest an alternative. The
alternatives may not include any direct benefit to me. Because my clients
believe that I have _their_ best interests in mind, they have never
questioned my objectivity, frequently saying they _prefer_ to work with me
even when I'm _not_ the optimal solution!
Good luck with this aggravating situation.
* — Blaise
Bill,
I have a lot of sympathy for you rant! I'm glad you had this opportunity to
get it off your chest.
One phenomenon I've observed is that the very same person who demands
absolute perfection from an external typesetter, loses all perspective when
judging his or her work. It certainly sounds as though the pharmaceutical
company has selected a novice (based on the number of calls made to you).
Perhaps they don't realize how much of a novice.
Sympathy.
Dave
Bill –
GOD, that's frustrating.
Back when I used to run a department, and had 6 people working for me, I
hired a lot of beginners. They'd come in with these GREAT freelance jobs,
that dropped in their laps, and would have to as me how to do them. Being a
nice guy, I'd help them… but I always wondered why the least-experienced
artists got the best jobs.
Incompetent competitors are probably a fact of life in most professions…
hopefully they get better or go away. It is annoying to loose work to them.
It appears to me that this particular customer was in some way dissatisfied
(whether it was design style, price, turnaround, your shirt color, or the
phase of the moon), or they wouldn't have looked elsewhere. They didn't
"keep it in-house", they jobbed it out to a freelancer.
Because they seem to have made a poor choice in alternatives, you have a
second chance to address their dissatisfaction.
I don't think that approaching the corporate comm person <neccessarily> has
to be a challenge to her ego, if you present it right.
My personal philosophy is: the more my customers know about the process,
the better they'll like my service — 'cause I'm good at it.
Last december, a customer for whom I had done a couple of catalogs, decided
to use someone else. After $2000 worth of charges from this "cheaper"
source, they were 3 weeks late and only a quarter done. They called me in a
panic, I charged them $1000 more to fix the mess than I would have to do it
right the first time, and got them back on schedule (just barely). I don't
think I'm in danger of them going elsewhere again.
— don
Bill:
Personally, the Mac's SMART QUOTES are driving me CRAZY! When I keep moving
files off the Mac and into our Quadex system, they come across in QASCII as
capped Rs and Ss, the em dash as cap Q, etc. and so forth. Keep telling
myself to carve out some time and write a little program to convert the
Mac's hi-order stuff to typesetting style tags, but haven't gotten around
to it.
Besides, I always liked inch marks. Especially in the sans serif faces <g>.
–jon
If you don't already use Add/Strip, I'd recommend it for de-Macifying
files, Jon. It only works on text files, but you can set up 9 different
translation, which should be enough to get most of the common high-bit Mac
characters stripped or converted. (I have to use it here to make sure I'm
uploading text files that can be used on all platforms and can be read
on-line.)
<BW>
Brad:
I've used Add/Strip going from IBM to Mac, but I forgot it can go the other
way. De-Macify. Great word.
–jon
Please excuse my jumping in here with an unassociated query, but which
Associated Graphics are you?
Beth Ann,
We are the one, the only, Associated Graphic Services, Ltd., and we are in
Albany, New York. But you know that now. Thank's for stopping in!
Bruce/AGS
Please tell me the subject your message was listed under is only a hold
over.
Hi Bruce: Re your point of view on DTP. I suspect your nearsightedness
has progressed beyond your eyesight! How is the view from the mount?
Howdy Joe,
Re "How's the view from the mount?": Crystal Clear (with my specs on).
Would you like me to send you some samples from my scrap heap? Some of it
I'm repsonsible for myself.
One more thing, I owe DTP everything, DTP has made our service bureau (and
my job) possible. DTP has also made possible a lot of publications that
otherwise never would have been produced. This is both good and bad. BTW we
use exclusively Adobe type, my point was it is the layout that looks good
or bad.
Bruce/AGS (who is looking for his rose-colored glasses to examine output
with)
Whew, I hope can reply to at least some of your points. I didn't think you
were slamming dtp (else, why are you in this forum?), and I thought I'd be
clever and beat Kathleen to the punch. And after I posted my message I
realized I still has some arguments left over. Perhaps some other time.
First, let's not forget that dtp is still a very new way of producing
documents, and as such is infant technology that is still learning to walk,
so to speak. I think it's amazing what we can do now that I didn't even
dream of 10 years ago. As the field matures things will get better from a
technical point of view.
Second, most of your complaints have to do with amateurs attempting
design without any background, just because they now have computers that
allow them to do it. I think it is an argument conceded everywhere that
there is a lot of bad design out there. Is it any worse than it used to be?
Is there any more than there used to be? I think not. It's just that the
bad design now has a few more pretensions to it, which makes it seem worse.
I don't think you can blame the technology. The hype behind the technology,
though, must certainly shoulder a lot of responsibility. And again, I would
say, that's a conceded argument. (Which, unfortunately still hasn't stopped
the hype and its lure.) People have been sold a line that a computer, given
a small set of rigid rules, can do design thinking for them.
The bastardization of type through "regularization" and "modernization"
was happening long before dtp came along. Take ITC Garamond, for example.
This is not a new issue, and perhaps is one that only plagues us now
because, at this point in history, there is much interest in historical
fidelity in the arts in general.
Granted, cuts have been regularized to improve their look on low
resolution devices. But what is our goal? Artistic purity or decent looking
type? If 300 dpi is being used, I want to see faces that look good in that
medium. And I think Adobe has paid some attention to that, especially with
their own faces. I
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[continued]
think that's to their credit. And if a historical face has to be adjusted
to turn out well at 300 dpi, I think that's acceptable. Now, I think more
properly your argument is that because type is being designed for use at
300 dpi, it is being ruined for higher resolution. And that I might be able
to agree with you on. But I think those people who have a need for truly
fine type at high resolution will go to the bother of finding the right
vendor to fill their needs. Now, finding a service bureau to match that is
another question. As Kathleen pointed out in (I think) a different thread,
many bureaus will use fonts supplied by clients for particular jobs, and
remove them from their systems when the job is complete. And although this
may not follow the exact letter of the licensing agreement, it seems to be
how it is working out in practice. Has anybody been sued yet for doing
this? (This is an honest query, I'd like to know.)
Most people buy Adobe because Adobe is all they know. They know Adobe put
the "35 resident fonts" into their LaserWriters, so when they go looking
for more, they naturally turn in that direction. Plus, they are almost
universally available. This is Adobe's advantage from having been in at the
beginning of dtp. Again, as the field matures things will change. Adobe is
facing a lot of challenges these days. From Royal, from other vendors, from
PostScript clones. Things are still very volatile in this field, and it's a
field which, until recently, was not used to such rapid change. And we're
still not used to it. Most of us are complaining mightily about Royal and
bemoaning the thought of having to start our type libraries all over from
scratch.
I, too, work almost exclusively with dtp now, and I don't want to go
back, either. And it pleases me no end when I hear that my work on my Mac
can pass as the "real" stuff among typographic snobs who sneer at dtp.
Hey, folks –
Do you think we might be just a little bit jaded here?
This stuff that we're calling "bad" is a whole lot better than it used to
be.
Have we already forgotten brochures created with typewriter or 9-pin
printers (and usually bad ribbons) that'd been photo-reduced on a copier
that needed toner, and old rub-on type touched up with a felt-tip marker?
— don
Hey, Don, I agree. That was part of the point of my message to Tripp. I
certainly have _not_ forgotten typewriter type, or for the more adventurous
amateurs, creating entire blocks of body copy entirely of broken Letraset!
However, listening to all these horror stories… What's an honest
designer to do? Is this kind of hack work _this_ prevelant? Don't any of
these Fortune 100 companies, etc. ask to see a _portfolio_ before they hire
a designer? A resume, at least? And why is a service bureau giving free
advice to an obviously undertrained, underskilled, underexperienced
numbskull? (Calm down, David, calm down.) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
Okay.
I know it took me a while to learn the dtp ropes (way back in the first
month of Ventura's release, trying to force it to do things it was never
designed to do). Corel was trying to sell complete dtp systems back then,
and I foolishly gave them a copy of some work of mine done "traditionally"
and asked them to duplicate it. Of course, I never heard back from them.
But now here I am today, a near dtp guru to some of my clients. The
problem, I guess is that people are coming into dtp backwards. I was
trained and worked in typography and design and I've come to dtp that way,
so I knew what I wanted things to look like. Now we have people coming with
no conception of what makes good design or good typography, but they have a
computer that they think let's them do it easily. But they're still missing
the fundamentals. Now, they _can_ pick those up. But they shouldn't be
doing it at the expense of clients. And those clients should know better
than to hire a dtper when what they really want is a designer. Or maybe a
conventional designer and a dtper to render their work.
I think I need some more deep breaths…
David –
I, too, feel frustration at seeing "inexperienced numbskulls" taking work
from "honest designers."
I don't think that anyone would purposely choose to publish a badly
designed piece over a well designed piece, all other factors being even. i
also think that the market will out, cream will rise to the top, and a
whole bunch of other cliches that mean it'll all work out eventually.
Part of the problem is due to a lack of understanding, on the part of the
general public, of what a graphic designer is. I read an article in the
recent issue of print… graphic designers didn't really exist until the
'50s. Most people confuse us with illustrators or "Commercial artists".
Editors are often taught that design falls within their realm — I got MY
first design instruction as part of an editting class.
Another part of the problem may be due to the air of snoottiness and
flakiness, that our profession, as a whole, has assumed — modelling itself
on the fine arts community.
I think the whole thing is going to be a process of educating our clients.
I feel that the more they know about what it is I do, the more they'll like
the way I do it — I'm good at it.
— don
Sure, but that was never presented as "Professional Typesetting"
Mark Niemann-Ross
Quark 3rd Party Marketing Manager
Mark –
I have here, in front of me, a piece of trash that was created by a
"professional graphic artist" — it was created by traditional means,
phototype, stat camera, exacto knife, etc.
Do you remember the fury of "typesetters" that was created when the IBM ESC
was introduced? For $3000, all the home typists became typesetters —
smudgy tpe and all.
Part of the blame for this also lies with Apple's marketting, and to a
lesser extent with the software vendors who have perpetuated the myth that
if you just purchase the "right" computer and the "right" software," you
can produce "professional looking" documents right at your desk — no
experience needed.
— don
Tapcis has done it again … somehow I missed the second part of your
message and can't seem to find it now. I think we're in agreement, that
it's really the *people* running the software that are to blame for most of
DTP's shortcomings. (Rather, I should say the untrained people…)
Unfortunately, I don't see the "good enough" trend reversing itself. As an
example, one of our customers, a Fortune 100 company, has started to hire
freelancers to handle some of its work. Now that their full-time personnel
are just *beginning* to get the hang of DTP, they're bringing in a whole
crew of fly-by-night DTPers who are producing horrendous work. The bottom
line seems to be "the bottom line" so to speak. This company apparently
doesn't care what it's printed matter looks like as long as it's cheap. I
find this particularly annoying because they've been busting my stones for
the last six years over the most amazingly trivial things (half a pt. this
way, half a pt. that way, 15 passes on a job … you get the picture). Why
was quality such a critical issue when *we* did the job traditionally but
not if their freelancers do it with DTP? I think it's the hypocrisy of the
situation that galls me the most. And given the capabilities of DTP
(WYSIWYG, plain paper proofing etc.) it would seem that quality would be
*easier* to achieve in a much shorter time. This is what *really* drives me
nuts! The hardware platform is there, for the most part, but they keep
turning the jobs over to idiots. <Whew! I feel better now…>
FWIW, the 2nd part of David's message to you is message number 5877, if you
want to tell TAPCIS to pick it up for you.
<BW>
(who is hoping to have a worthwhile contribution to this renamed thread of
"DTP gone bad!" later this evening. <grin>
Tripp,
You've really hit the nail on the head, but I don't know if there's any
solution to the situation.
Unfortunately, some people seem to think that the software/hardware will
take care of design issues. Like maybe the computer won't let you print
the thing if it's ugly <grin>.
In fact, a company's acceptance of poor DTP work may partially result from
a lower expectation. It saves us $$$ and it's not a megabuck typesetting
machine so how could we expect it to look as good.
* — Blaise
I *like* that idea, Blaise! Perhaps RIP 4 will have a routine built in that
automatically refuses to print ugly pages. I'd just love to tell a customer
that their job was just too ugly to print! <Sorry, ma'am, it just won't go
through the RIP…> I can hardly wait…
R
O
F
L!!!!!!
–Thom
Tripp,
You guys are starting to sound like some of us over in PhotoForum. With
all the autofocus, autoeverything cameras out there, we are looking for a
camera that auto-composes and won't let the shutter trip until an
aesthetically pleasing composition is arranged.
JC
Such a camera would never fly! Kodak would go out of business … 99% of
the photo processing in the country would come to a screaming halt! Come to
think of it, such a concept would have the same effect on DTP <grin>.
It's hearing stories like these that make me glad I'm on the creative end,
and not the "service" end of the graphics business. I have enough trouble
dissuading clients who have set ideas about what type they want to use,
what colour it should be, what stock should be used, all before we have our
first meeting. Having to deal with bucket brains like you've described
would drive me nuts! Have you tried pointing out to them what a lousy job
their freelancers are doing?
By the way, if you still can't find the second part of my message (#5877,
but it may have scrolled off by now), let me know and I'll send it to you
as a private message.
Actually, we have a slogan at our company….
"Bucket Brains Welcome!" "Send Us Your DTP Monstrosities and Break Our
Hearts!"
Every once in a while I try to remember that they're just beginners and
will improve with experience. Every once in a while I believe it…
Tripp,
Please tell me you don't work nights! It would be really great to have you
and that other guy, um…Bill, at next Tuesday's CO at 9pm. It's called
"DTP Horror Stories…And Successes!" and it just wouldn't be the same
without you, especially as I've blatently ripped off the idea from your
messages!
<BW>
(who wishes he could get Jon to take the night off and show up, too)
I do work nights … and I work with Bill … so count us both out unless
it's a slow night, in which case we'll go online from work. (I can just see
trying to explain to the boss what it is that we're doing…. maybe I could
call it "online research…")
Maybe youse guys could take turns working (if it's a semi-slow night)!
You're presence will be sorely missed by all!
<BW>
David,
I agree with you 100%. There are plenty of people out there who "don't
know anything about type" and will accept what they are given.
That does NOT mean that they can't see the difference between better
typography and worse typography. Or wouldn't have a clear preference for
the better when given a choice.
It just means that they don't know WHAT they could demand, nor HOW to
demand it.
Which is why people who do know those things should demand good
typography. It will be appreciated, even if not understood.
Wine is the same way. Lots of people are convinced they don't know
anything about it (and they are right). But they usually can recognize the
really good stuff when they taste it!
John
Of course, I agree with you. And hopefully, as people use dtp, and start
comparing their stuff with "real" design and typography that they see in
the real world, they'll start noticing the differences and start educating
themselves. They already are, of course, witness the dtp magazines and this
very forum. It is not a hopeless cause.