A short design fairy tale with a happy ending
I’m sitting in a bar one hot Sunday afternoon sipping a beer. A light draft, because they don’t have a dark one to order a mix, half and half. Across from me sits my old friend K1, who came from far away on the other side of the world. One word leads to another, memories come and go.
And K1 mentions that his institution will soon have an important anniversary. Apparently so, because you’ve been on the other side for a long time. He groans that he lost contact with the designer who worked for them years ago. I ask him if he needs a design for the web or for print. They’d like to put the thing in print. Well, nothing easier then—why don’t you ask me? Oh yes, oh yes, really, would you do that…?
And that’s how it started.
Maybe I misunderstood, maybe K1 was talking in a convoluted way, but at first I thought it would just be an invitation. A folded A5 sheet of paper. But then there was a bit of history, then the program, then a speech, then the thanks. And over time, a 32-page brochure was created. Plus a cover.
The material for the brochure came in pieces. Or it didn’t come at all. Photos were mostly taken with a cell phone. A few photos from the previous booklet were desperately bad. Some text arrived as an image. Luckily, I was able to scan it and convert it into text. Some signatures for congratulations and thanks were written by hand on paper, then a photo of the note was taken and sent to me.
But that was just the beginning.
Where will we print this? It turns out it could be at their place. K2 comes to my aid. I know that there is a different standard for prepress on the other side. I ask what color profiles I should use. FOGRA or SWOP? What paper will we use? I find out that over there they use thickness and points (pts) labels for paper, whereas here we consider weight in grams.
Not to mention the dimensions. I find out that the previous brochure was half-letter size. Dimensions in inches. Bleed here is 3 mm, over there it’s 0.125 inches. Which is 3.17 mm. You might say, f..k 0.17 mm. But of course, you find out that due to optical printing settings, 0.17 mm actually means a lot.
And then a shock. The price of printing over there was disproportionately high. Printing here would be much cheaper. But if we print here, a logistics problem arises. How do we get three hundred brochures across the ocean?
Then K1 connects with A. He brings a new offer from another printing house. I get in touch with Mrs. H, who once again explains all the secrets of printing standards to me. We quickly agreed because I already had some data from K2. I also secretly asked Google’s Gemini.
During this time, K3 sends me additional materials. I shuffle the text around the brochure, from front to back and vice versa.
K1 sits next to me at the computer and shuffles photos. Half of which I then have to delete because additional congratulations come in. Which I then have to fit in. It’s all quite chaotic.
Finally, I get the program, but it hasn’t been confirmed yet. It’s not yet known exactly which VIPs and guests of honor will be present.
Meanwhile, I’m getting messages. K1 says “Thank you for your extraordinary talent and patience!” K3 writes in the committee minutes: “The brochure is about 90% done. Brane is doing an excellent job and we are very pleased with the progress.” K2, despite his stressful days, writes: “Dear Brane, sorry for bothering you too many times. It was a pleasure to work with a wonderful graphic designer.” And A says: “Finally, I would like to thank you for your constructive cooperation on this project and I hope that we will collaborate on something similar again sometime.”
And Google’s Gemini says to me: “Congratulations on a quick and successful job!”
Did I mention that in the meantime they remembered they needed an anniversary card designed too? I didn’t? Well, they did remember…
And then the last request from A: “Add more… and then send it to the printer immediately”.
Just another day of saving the world—no rest for the iron fist!
Yes, I have had gray hair since before…
The names are hidden, but the events are truly real…