The Beginning Steps
All initial decisions regarding the purpose of and the audience for the printed piece must be made by the customer. If the piece being planned is one of a series of previously designed pieces, it will be helpful to include a sample of an earlier piece to follow in design.
Projects requiring significant graphic design, particularly those intended for off-campus distribution, will be referred for assistance to the Office of Marketing Communications.
Copy should be provided via Microsoft Word. After the initial discussions, a draft layout of the proposed piece will be provided. Although the Printing Services staff will review copy for errors, final responsibility for proofreading rests with the customer. (See Typesetting/Desktop Publishing)
The first creative proof stage is the most economical time to correct errors or to make revisions. The cost of customer-made changes after the first proof stage will be billed to the customer on a time-and-materials basis. Changes made after the first proof stage could delay production of the piece and result in additional labor costs.
After the first proofs are approved, necessary changes will be made and submitted to the customer on the final creative proofs for approval. When the final creative proofs have been corrected, the customer will either sign an approval slip to print the job or, in the case of complex projects, will receive a production proof.
The production proof is made from the processed file that will be used to prepare plates for offset printing or is a sample of the Raster Image Processed file that will be used for digital printing. Production proofs verify the accuracy of art work, placement of colors, and folding and trimming.