If you’ve ever done any print marketing, you’ve probably heard the term “Eating a Job”.
Typically, it means that a drastic mistake has been made by someone during the process of creating a marketing piece. Technically you as the customer have the ultimate responsibility. We all know however that the customer is always right. In any case it’s never a comfortable situation. Although we will tell our customers they are ultimatly responsible we always take a lot of steps to avoid these embarassing problems. Whether that’s providing compensation for the now worthless printing or pay for a new batch of whatever the issue is, it’s quickly corrected, hopefully before it makes it to press. There are several steps we take and encourage our customers to do the same.
It can be anything from a typo to an actual press failure.
At Cimetta Design, we work through various checklists to double-check copy provided to us by our clients as well as copy we’ve written ourselves. Avoid Eating Print Jobs. When it comes to a printed piece, there are five items that you MUST make sure you accomplish:
- Read and look at every item on the piece.
- Re-read it.
- Get a fresh pair of eyes to read it.
- Get a proof from the printer before going to final press.
- Re-read it one more time.
You always want to be sure that you receive a proof from your printer. This is not only to double-check spelling, but to make sure that the printer understands what the final piece should look like in terms of color and general alignment and arrangement of the piece.
If it does come to eating a job, I might have stumbled upon some good news. You maybe able to do just that.
Well, to make a short story long, I heard something the other day that was rather amusing. I was talking to a printer friend of mine while going over a job with a client.
We were discussing the difference between printing here in the US or in China. Pricing in China can be almost two-thirds less than here in the states. But the trade offs are that the materials, timelines, and shipping always cut into the difference on short run jobs, or jobs that are under 5,000 pieces.
If you’re doing large runs, there is no way you can compete with China’s pricing. The funny thing that was pointed out was when we were comparing Chinese Corrugate to US Corrugate. You’ll notice that if you compare the two, the Chinese paper is yellower and the grain is much shorter.
This is because they make their paper out of rice and the glue that they use on the boxes is made of corn starch. Which technically means that if your next print job happens to run into a speed bump and you have to eat a job, it might not go down so bad.
But of course I don’t recommend eating any jobs. If you make sure that you proof read everything carefully, things should just go fine.
Here’s a link to a few more typo examples…http://www.financetwitter.com/2014/10/here-twenty-two-product-packaging-fails-that-are-too-hilarious.html
Do you need a website, Logo, or marketing piece designed? Come on by for a cup of coffee and lets discuss you, your organization, and your product or service.
