Waiting until the last minute to undertake a print project is never a good idea and often leads to stress, headaches, and additional costs. Most printers understand businesses or organizations often require rapid turnaround on projects that arise due to emergencies or events beyond their control. Here are some tips to make last-minute projects go as smoothly as possible to enable your printer to meet your project’s deadline:
1) Contact Your Printer ASAP to Discuss Project
As soon as a project with a deadline becomes manifest (“It’s Tuesday morning and we need 10,000 copies of this document in our Dallas office by Friday!”), contact your printer — even before the document in question has been designed/created or revised. Your printer will be able to consult their schedule/workload and give you a timeline of: a) when they need finalized artwork; b) when the job will be printed; c) make necessary arrangements for delivery upon completion. It’s not uncommon for a desired paper stock to be unavailable or undeliverable to the printer in time to meet the deadline and another paper stock will need to be selected. If your job cannot be accommodated in a given time frame, most printers will refer you to other printers capable of completing the project on deadline. The key point is to communicate with your printer immediately. Even if your printer has completed last-minute rush jobs for you on previous occasions, there’s no guarantee they’ll be able to deliver every time you call.
2) Consider Splitting the Order
Is it possible to get by with a lower quantity of a requested document in the short term with the remainder delivered at a later date? Rather than run all 10,000 pieces on an offset press now, perhaps 200 pieces produced on a digital press will suffice to avoid catastrophe in the short term.
3) Print-Ready Artwork is a Necessity!
As we discussed in a previous post talking about what the term “print-ready” means, it’s critical in last-minute rush jobs to make sure the artwork file(s) you submit to your printer meets all the necessary requirement to insure it can be printed without delay or difficulties. Is the document the correct size? Are ink colors defined properly (CMYK or spot)? Are margins set properly? Are photos/graphics high resolution? Are necessary fonts included? Are bleeds and crop marks set properly? Has the document been checked for spelling and grammar errors? The difference between meeting and missing a deadline is often the result of delays caused by the need to correct problematic art files.
4) Don’t Require a Hard Proof
Printers almost always require a sign-off on a job — even rush jobs —before they’ll take it to press. We talked about the two kinds of proofs (“soft” and “hard”) in a previous blog post. Briefly, “hard proofs” are actual physical objects (e.g., a laser print, a press proof, etc.) and “soft proofs” are digital, PDF files. With time being of the essence, a PDF proof can be sent via email, viewed in a browser, and approved in a matter of minutes.
5) Discuss Delivery Options with Your Printer
In the your initial call to your printer, discuss how the finished job is to be delivered to the intended recipient(s). In time-critical situations, some normal delivery methods may not be able to meet your deadline while expedited shipping services (Overnight/Next Day or 2-Day) may be prohibitively expensive. As mentioned in Tip #2 above, it might make sense to ship or deliver a limited number of finished pieces with an expedited service to “put out the immediate fire” while shipping/delivery the remainder via normal channels.
If you have any questions about Rush Jobs give us a call at 330-597-8560. We’re happy to help you get the most out of your printing project.
Photo by Ocean Ng
