Some design related questions.

[Dyne]

having just graduated with a BFA in design i feel stupid for asking these but i now know my school didnt do too much to prepair me for the real world. im trying to get a job at a print house and they say experience with the printing industry is necessary. but i feel if i can at least show them i understand it and can do what they want that might help. so i assume i would need to do spot color or color seperation (2 terms ive heard while scouring for jobs), which i dont know a thing about. also for quark and the adobe programs i know you need to collect for output to get it ready for printing but we really skimmed over that so i have almost no clue there as well. and finally anything else you guys think i should know before sending my resume?

[mollipen]

What kind of job are you looking for? I did full-on layout for GameFan later in my life there, and don't know jack about spot color, color seperation, or anything like that. I mean, I understand the basics about them, but I never dealt with them myself.

As well, it really depends on where you work when it comes to stuff like that. In the later days of GF, sending the stuff to the printer meant burning all of the Quark files, images, and whatever else was needed onto a CD, and shipping it off to the printer. With more things going straight digital, I'm not sure that knowing the ins and outs of things like that is as necessary anymore. Sure, it certainly won't hurt you, but I also think it won't always help.

[Dyne]

well from what i understand the place IS the print house. all the ad really says is full time position for a graphic designer, print knowledge necessary.

so you used Quark for GF huh? ive found pretty much everywhere i look they use pagemaker and indesign these days (tho during my school years i knew quark like the back of my hand). funny tho, one job i had in interview for was still using corel draw.......i just sat there stupered.

[holsomeness]

Type setting is a must. Tried applying around for graphic design jobs when I said I hadn't been trained in that they gave me a look like wtf are you doing here then? They also commented that I had a more imaginative porfolio and that I should look for other art jobs. From what I know I think I'm better off not doing that kind of work.

[K3V]

It depends on what kind of printing they do. If it's just spot color (not full process color), it's actually pretty easy - you just have to do design using only say, two colors, print out separations and you're done.

It sounds like, if you're looking to get into typesetting at a print shop, you'll need to find some place that will work with you and give you the specific training you need. With your background it shouldn't really be too hard to adapt.

[Drewbacca]

Most good graphic design or advertising firms actually have a type setter. As for the spot and additive colours, you should know how the prints work.

As you know, CMYK and Pantone are the most commonly used. Coated and uncoated pantone are for glossy and mat paper, I believe. Most of the stuff for print is glossy (magazines, posts, etc.)

If your client only wants you to use 1 or 2 colours (black counts as a colour, BTW), do it up in to pantone. It's cheaper. For CMYK you pay for Cyan Magenta, Yellow and Black anyway, so you pay for more colours than needed.

I haven't learned prepress yet, but basically you have to set your files up (.pdf is probably your best bet since most computers can use it and it's small in size, but high in quality)

You should've learnt this in school. I'm going to school for design right now and I have a whole prepress class next semester teaching us what the heck we have to actually do (we get to go to presses and stuff in Toronto, which is a perk of living in a huge city). But you should know the differences or else you got jipped in your course.

Other than that, I can't tell you too much more than this because I haven't learned a lot of it. You should also know how to make dye lines and crop marks for stationary and stuff when you send it off to the printer.

It's easy in school because your mock-up printer is usually down the hall, but in real life it's usually two or three towns away, at minimum.

p.s. pantone is spot colour, I forgot to mention that. And you should have booklets with pantone numbers in there. They help you out when "technically" designing to spec. (by help, I mean save you from getting fired by costing the company printing money)

[DOVESKI]

I hate to be blunt, but look for a gaphics job minus the printing, like Shidoshi said, these should usually be two seperate jobs, you didnt go to school to be a printer, that's bullshit.

I did a print job for a while and would just have to let the printers know the Pantone numbers of the colors in the project, and include the linked files & fonts, that was it.

[Drewbacca]

DOVESKI: Do a lot of people send you embedded files? I heard some horror stories about that, but if the image is small and it's not duped then it shouldn't be a huge problem.

And is it better to use .pdf? I'm pretty sure it is, since it's universal.

[DOVESKI]

Oh sorry, i wasnt a printer, i did print design, but PDF is pretty much becoming the standard since digital processing is taking over. Alot of print houses now only accept PDF files.

Embedding never seems to work though, I always would include the linked files in a seperate folder, when alot of money is on the line that could be your job.

[Drewbacca]

Definitely. Any project I start gets its own folder and sub dirs. Just in case and it makes it easier. And create outlines too.