The Designers Working With series is based on opinions from the different industries we depend on: other designers, photographers, writers, printers and pre press specialists (marketeers to be slipped in later).

In the photographers section of DWW we were taken through a Photographer’s Day by talented Jon Boyes. For the print section, I’m equally pleased to give you my Canadian buddy, Matt.

A day in the life of Matt Beazley, Printer

BZZZ BZZZ BZZZ *WHAM*

The time I get up in the morning depends on how busy I am. Today I am up fairly early and dealing with those nervous butterfly’s I still get even after 7 years. Usually on the busy days I wake up before my alarm and mentally plan out my day…of course that will change.

7:00 am: Arrive to work, open the doors, turn on the machines and grab a cup of Joe. Sitting at my desk I go over my to-do list and check my email (checking email will usually rearrange your to-do list).

7:30 am: Time to start loading up the printing queue’s with the “ready to print” jobs. Generally these are all business cards/rack cards/post cards from brokers ( I handle 2 of them while Bill handles the other one). While these are printing I can pre-press the “not so ready to print” jobs.

- Time to tally up what must be done today: 12 sets of business cards, 1000 post cards, 200 tickets, 200 Newsletters, logo revision, follow up two cheque orders, follow up quotes/proofs. That will keep me out of trouble.

8:00 am: I realize I’ve made a mistake. Yesterday I gave a quote with a broker supplying stock and I shorted the quantity of stock by half. Pick up the phone, take some heat, make it right (which means I usually offset my cost to save his profit. This is fair as it was my fault).

-Continue printing and stacking jobs to be cut later.

9:00 am: The “Open” sign gets turned on along with the rest of the lights. Kevin is in the back making coffee and he’ll do administrative work for most of the morning (someone has to take care of the books). After nine is also when the phone starts ringing - anything is possible now.

10:00 am: Time to follow up with suppliers. I have a 3 part invoice job with an offset printer I need to make sure is on time, which it is (quick email to the client to let him know, everyone likes an update). A call to a cheque supplier let’s me know both orders have been shipped, batting a thousand so far.

-For the rest of the morning it’s problem solving other peoples artwork. Bouncing some marketing ideas off each other and making sure the machines keep printing. So far so good. The inevitable wrench hasn’t been thrown into my print gears thus far.

Noon: Do I have time for lunch today? A quick one. Up to Subway and back to my desk. Phone rings…here comes that wrench. Our largest broker has a rush job for a funeral (service cards). 8.5 X 11 scored and folded to 8.5 X 5.5 due first thing in the morning. Do I take it or pass? I accept the job. There is no way I can farm out the scoring (we don’t have that equipment here) and have it finished in time. It will have to be hand scored, all 200. This is the point I realize I am not going home anytime soon.

-Revamp the to-do list, continue pushing jobs through.

1:00 pm: I realize my pile of jobs to be cut is stacking higher by the minute. I had better tackle it before it gets out of control. Cutting is my least favorite activity, but it’s got to be done. The next hour and half is spent in the backroom.

2:30 pm: With a good portion of my cutting done, and the machines behaving, the day is on schedule. I sit down to the emergency job and start prepping. Fairly simple but will take some time to print and even longer to score.

3:00 pm: Funeral cards are printing and now it’s time to take back my desk from the hustle and bustle. Having a clean well organized desk (work area) is paramount for me, the moment you let it go is when things get missed and mistakes happen. Printing requires a constant level of awareness and a disdain for complacency.

3:30 pm: With my desk organized I am finishing up all the little loose ends such as answering quote requests, calling clients to let them know their jobs are completed (or that they are on schedule). Kevin’s printed the receivables list (always a lot out there with a 30 day net term) and we go over who we should bug and who not to. After that it’s finishing up any other cutting that needs to be taken care of.

4:00 pm: The front side of the funeral cards are done and now I’m lining up the back. With that printing I sit down to invoice. I like to do all my invoicing near the end of the day. All my jobs are on a table behind me and this way I don’t miss anything. Invoicing complete I box up my main brokers jobs and drop them off right to the front door of his house (that’s right, beat that service).

4:40 pm: Back in the office and finish off the backside of the rush order. Now I cut and start the tedious task of hand scoring. I’m assuming this will take me a couple of hours and it does.

7 ish pm: Finally time to pack it in. Funeral cards will be shipped by courier first thing and that’s a wrap….now where is my beer.

Matt Beazley | Printer
www.eyemean.com | Canada

Matt, after reading about your day, I’m sufficiently shagged out to join you for that beer!

until the next
Designers WW,
cat

Printers and those involved heavily in prepress can be a mysterious breed. I knew this already, but the past few months served to solidify the fact for me. For instance, in the Writers and Photographers intro section of the DWW Series, researching information about each participant was easy. I either read jacket covers, blogs or websites. Their information was served up whole. Printers and those working prepress, on the other hand, are more private. It makes sense actually, as their work is mostly behind the scenes, making the rest of us look great.

I say “mostly” because those involved in this series cross-over at all angles, which is why I combined printing and prepress. Some are designers / printers. Some are designers / prepress. Some are designers / prepress / print brokers. Others are 100% printing or 100% prepress. All are knowledgeable about getting final materials to clients, and that’s what this series is all about.

This series also holds an international mix of characters. Served up below alphabetically. By country. So now on to the introduction …

AUSTRALIA: Lyn Eggleston is well known for giving exact advice on getting files printed correctly (her knowledge certainly shows in the information you’ll read). On the personal side, I’ve had plans to visit Lyn for the past six or so years, all which were scrapped for a handful of reasons. Next year we’ll try again, so wish us luck!

CANADA: Brad McAuley (Kwik Kopy) and Matt Beazley (www.eyemean.com) are our resident lads from way up there. Managing to ‘almost’ meet in Seattle this year, Matt is a long time buddy of mine from a graphic design forum. Matt’s a true round-the-clock maniac when it comes to work, Brad is his super busy round-the-clock maniac buddy who joined in for the first two questions.

ITALY: Elisabetta Bruno (ThinkCreation) is another long time friend. If I wasn’t so vain about my age (and if she wasn’t so [cough] [cough] with chocolate), I’d call her my second daughter. Betta is a regular of the About.com design forum. You can also find her at the About Desktop Publishing and About Graphics Software forums as their forum host and contributor. And, as you can imagine, her strengths in software troubleshooting made her perfect for this series.

NEW ZEALAND: Genie Ho (PDQ Print) is from my side of the world so I found it easy to bug her in real time. She’s “worked in prepress in Auckland, New Zealand for 2 and a bit years. Her interests include fonts, food and rabbits. One day she wants to be a children’s book illustrator”.

Ps: we came < —THIS — > close to getting another Kiwi to join in. But, no cigar.

THAILAND: For Thailand, I asked a friend of mine in Bangkok and she highly recommended her own printer – George Lee (Nan Sing Printing), a Filipino and fellow expat. Although we’ve never met (we’ll have to ‘lunch’ one of these days), George printed a job I worked on last year.

USA: From the United States we have Alex Noguera (www.bowne.com), who “has a B.A. in Graphic Design from Felician College, does design work on the side and, for fun, and also spends time as a volunteer firefighter”. At first glance you’d think being a fireman / designer / printer is an unusual combination. Right? Not quite.

Chris Tomlinson (Gonink - Design & Print) is also a designer / printer / firefighter, personal long time friend and another ‘almost met’ in Seattle of this year. He swore it was due to stopping his own house from burning to the ground :-D

Derald Schultz (Mediarail Design, Inc.) is another designer / printer combo, but instead of firefighting he’s heavily involved in raising a beautiful baby boy and showing his ultra neat, classic 1967 GTZ musclecar. Derald is also Creative Latitude’s much loved editor, our very own ‘mr.d’. We met in Seattle last year and had a blast. Although he skipped Seattle 2007, we are hoping to make up for it in 2008. Btw - Derald has kindly agreed to have two of his articles reprinted for the series. Thanks Derald!

John Carvalho (Mixed Media: Design & Printing Services) is a “28-year-old independent graphic designer/printing broker originally from Massachusetts, currently residing in Amelia Island, Florida, where he attempts to redesign the entire island one business at a time”. John is another forum member free with needed advice.

Tom Stege (Print Time Online) says - “I’ve worked in printing for about 10 years, and in prepress for 4 years. Troubleshooting is fun (especially when it’s not my machines causing the trouble). I’m a family man with a wife and two kids who lives in a suburb of Seattle, and who likes to be a part of a few online communities. Oh, and I do make awesome Eggs Benedict”. Tom lives in Seattle, so we’ll have to get him over to the Seattle Meet ‘08 for sure!

PrintDriver will mainly stay a mystery, but has offered up – “I’m an in-house wide format/specialty graphics specialist. I also do signage, trade shows, corporate theater, artistic ‘facilitation’ (realizing artists’ concepts), you name it, we do it.” I will say this, I’ve been reading his advice online for years and it’s all good.

Hopefully I’ve taken the mystery out of most for you. And after reading, is that a great lineup, or what?

Next up will be their responses to question one: “As a professional printer / prepress specialist / print broker, what are the main points that you’d expect / want designers to know before contacting you about a project?”

until the next
Designers WW,
cat