Print Project Checklist

General

  • Direction, Quantity, Budget, Timeline, Stakeholders. Which are flexible or firm?

  • Create concepts along with content to ensure they work together. Content and design should inform each other.

  • Working quotes ensure you’re not over budget. They are’t meant to be 100% accurate.

  • Get final content from writers. Run spell check, find & replace double spaces, etc.

  • Provide clients with at least 3 directions. Any less and clients don’t feel like they have choices

  • Projects using trademarks not produced with UT Printing must be approved by licensing.

  • Send proofs for internal approval before sending to stakeholders.

  • Clients aren't always stakeholders that can approve projects.

  • Budget forms are the final step in getting cost approval.

  • Be sure to include all links, fonts, mockups, samples, and special instructions.

  • Keep a list of revisions requested to ensure they were made.

  • Notify team members, stakeholders, clients, etc. of delivery date.

  • Inspect project to ensure quality (rejecting damages) before delivering to client.

Design

  • En dashes require a space on either side, em dashes do not. En’s separate value ranges. Em’s indicate a sudden break in thought.

  • Hanging punctuation extends beyond the margins of text.

  • Rags should’t be noticed. Your goal is long line, then short line.

  • If the font doesn’t contain them, the program shrinks capital letters to approximate small caps. To spot them, look for a difference in stroke weight or review your glyphs.

  • Rivers are connected white spaces that distract from reading. To spot them, sit back and squint your eyes.

  • Primes indicate feet & inches.

  • Hyphenation is easily controlled with type point size and column width.

  • Typically body copy is not kerned. Spacing is controlled thru tracking.

  • Are typographic styles applied consistently for headlines, subhead, paragraph, etc.

  • Statements for financial data, legal, etc.

  • A drawdown is a sample of ink on paper—prior to printing—to ensure color accuracy.

  • Some stakeholders like to see and approve paper samples prior to printing.

  • Signatures are several folios collected together for binding. Verify signature requirements—typically 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.—with your printer.

Content

  • Ex. Is Monday the first actually a Monday?

  • Verify charts match original source files.

  • Do QR codes and links function as expected?

Pre-Press

  • Some printers require larger bleeds.

  • Ex. 1, 2, 3, etc. You’d be surprised how easily this is overlooked.

  • Make sure your swatches are setup to match your quote.

  • Deleting unused swatches prevents production delays and issues.

  • Be sure your vector designs are WYSIWYG.

  • Production issues and delays can occur if all links are not included.

  • It’s not Print > Save As PDF.

  • You may find mockups useful if you’re not versed in printing jargon.

  • Place diepaths, scorelines, printer notes, etc. on separate layers labled DO NOT PRINT.

  • Use the appropriate coated or uncoated swatches to avoid miscommunications.

  • Images printed in RGB will shift colors on press. You won’t be pleased.

  • Adjust CMYK levels to reduce ink levels for uncoated paper. This prevents ink from pooling and delaying dry time during production.

  • Typical issues are blowouts, skintones, memory colors. Memory colors are grass, sky, tomatoes, things people will notice if not printed the correct color.

  • If your paper is yellow, you need less yellow ink.

  • Images less than 300 result in poor production.

  • These are non-compressive formats.

  • Clean production files reduce production issues. Messy production files are unprofessional.

  • Save a live copy before creating flat production files.

  • Live effects are unpredictable on press.

    Leaving live effects in PSD or AI files creates opportunities for errors on press.

  • Not body copy. Outlined elements don’t require fonts.

  • Easily overlooked and fixed.

  • QR Codes must be straight black

On-Press

  • Sometimes things get out of alignment on press.

  • Elements that cross gutters should be checked, especially those on separate forms.

  • People will notice errors in headlines and subheads faster than body copy.

  • If your design hinges on alignment of certain elements, check them.

  • Is anything missing from you designs?

  • Check everything

  • Mark anything that does’t look right.

  • If you marked revisions on previous proofs, check that they were made.

  • Blacks should be black, whites white and grays gray.

  • Are spot colors & varnishes printing as specified?

  • Are margins equal?

  • Verify delivery location, date, time, and contact.