Yes I suppose it is. But it doesn't take long to design a letterhead and a neat logo. Of course if he was a multi-national I'd probably charge at least
10K for the same job and call myself a design consultant :)
But those sort of spammers are easy to deal with give your email as vistaprint@mydomain and then set it to bounce after you have finished with them :)
I do. It still annoys me, though.
Sadly, my past experience is that it also doesn't take long for the client to start jerking one's chain so trying to estimate time for the job +VAT is generally a good idea (heck getting back on topic for uk.finance).
Your quote is for about 1/2 an hours work which is reasonable if it's a clean and simple job. If the client then gets into "I don't like that, move this" you're heading for a loss.
Especially if your intention is to charge £25.53 + VAT.
Because they are capable of resolutions exceeding litho printing and are Ideal for short run colour printing, where the cost of making Litho plates would not be cost effective. Laser and inkjet technologies have revolutionised the printing industry. Because whereas 30 years ago it would cost £1000 to have litho plates made which meant it wasn't cost effective to do colour printing in runs of less than 10,000. It is now cost effective to do colour printing in extremely short runs. In fact large Ink jet printers are often used for making posters and reproducing art and are capable of
1500 to 3000dpi photo quality printing that can exceed even the quality of Cibachromes. :)The message from Jim contains these words:
Inkjet printer.
Yes that is true. Saying that I'm not big enough to be VAT registered. Of course being a designer I'm also reasonably adept at designing my own image and Web presence so that I look a lot more successful than I really am. It's all smoke and mirrors really but since that's what most people want from a designer it kind of works :)
Corel draw, or similar, and take the file to someone with a color laserprinter.
A matter of opinion...YOU try floating a gif *behind* some text in WORD.
Desktop printers are either inkjet, which is useless (not waterproof and very naff) or low res.or both..you need at least 600dpi for a class laser print job, and even that is never up to a proper lithoplate print.
Such printers are not cheap.
The break even point between laser and setting up for a proper print depends on the number of colors, but its usually in the hundreds of copies range.,Below that a professional laser printed job is the way to go.
Use of WORD to prepare the artwork is not advised...it has not the functionality to do the job. Quark or Corel Draw or one or two other packages are better.
Aaaah, for the good old days of letterpress! A jobbing printer would have set this up on an Adana 8x5 in no time . . . Roger
It takes about ten minutes to design a logo, times 5 that the customer asked for, then about 3 days of PDFS going backwards and forwards,, and several board meetings where the right one is selected, except that someone who has no knowledge of graphics then asks 'can't we...' and you spend another day trying to achieve the impossible, which you do, but they then decide they didn't like it anyway, and go back to the one of the five you originally proposed, then ask to have it so they can get their own print job done, then come back to you after discovering that WORD and a color inkjet they got from staples doesn't cut the mustard, then they argue a few days more over the bill, and after about a month you might get a cheque for a hundred quid.
Which is why you call yourself a design consultant, insist that you know more than they do, and charge £10k. At least they MAY respect your judgment at this point. And it just about covers the hassle of dealing with the stupid jerks who all think that because they used MSpaint once, they know all about graphic art..in a commercial env.
(My wife is a very very experienced graphic artists, and gave up in disgust..that is pretty much the way the last 'favour for a small startup' went...)
Its amazing the amount of pounds people will waste trying to save pennies...
Yes, but they don't come at £50 in staples do they?
PS you are being overcharged for the plates...never paid that much for a set...
Last time I had letterhead done by letterpress, I wanted to show an international format phone number, and the printer didn't have a + in any suitable font.
Owain
A top of the range inkjet printer such as the Canon Pixma IP8500 will produce excellent results, much better than you can get from a laser printer, and at least as good as what you would get from a commercial printer. Mine cost me £280 when I bought it. It is probably cheaper now.
Umm make the text a text box without a border bring it to the front, align it with the GIF as desired, group them and position the group as required.
Format the GIF as "behind text"
As a start.
A second hand Phaser 850 or 860 can be had for £50 to £100. Thy provide real 1200 dpi output, overprinting each of the four colours on the same dot which gives a resolution higher than offset litho.
These printers will emulate most presses accurately and are frequently used for colour match prints.
Corel is a vile waste of space, near impossible to get accurate colour output from it.
Yes, but then there would be the terrible decision about which graphic to select. The distorted cat, the fat and out of proportion car or the "slinky" woman in a 1930s dress.
Canon Pixma inks are not lightfast.
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