DESIGN PROOFS HAVE A PURPOSE - BECAUSE GRAPHIC DESIGNING TAKES A LOT OF F*CKING TIME.

Isn’t it amazing how things can just magically APPEAR in front of your very eyes!!?? The ‘vision’ you didn’t even know you wanted to see POOFS(!!!!) right in front of you when all you had before was a bunch of words and Pinterest boards all thrown together … and then, your magical designer, took all ‘that’ and created:

A PRODUCT THAT YOU CAN USE.

Designing comes in all forms … floral designing, table designing, interior designing … but the type of designing I’m referring to today is:

GRAPHIC DESIGNING.

Graphic designing is the art or skill of combining text, drawings, artwork, and pictures in advertisements, magazines, books, websites, invitations, and paper goods. It’s the art of arranging ‘items’ on a computer and then saving those graphics for use in print or in my case, to upload to a website. In most cases, these layouts have MULTIPLE layers, have been adjusted and justified and moved and saved and had ‘last move undone’ happen SO MANY F*CKING TIMES … it takes TIME … a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot of time.

Which is why, we as designers send out:

DESIGN PROOFS.

What is a design proof, Heather!!?? Glad you asked! A design proof is a product of ALL THAT WORK AND TIME that assures we can either PRINT the design or DESIGN THEM ALL FOR A WEBSITE << as typically when I design websites, one design concept will carry over to multiple pages on the website. A design proof is where THE CLIENT or whoever is REPRESENTING THE CLIENT needs to get their sh*t together and make some decisions.

PROOFREADING / ACKNOWLEDGING DESIGN PROOFS IS IMPORTANT

When something is presented to a client that has been designed graphically, it is VITAL that the person proofreading actually do just that! Here’s what I hear far too often in this line of work AFTER a proof of concept or design layout has been APPROVED:

I just noticed that there are a few misspelled words … can we fix that?
I’ve decided a want a different shade of “grey” for that bit right there … can we change that on all of them?
I actually decided I want to have all the photos cropped to a square instead of vertical … let’s change them
I got the prints of my invitations and I noticed that the venue is spelled wrong … we’ll have to just reprint them
I just saw this other ‘whatever’ and really loved it! Can we redesign mine to reflect that vibe?
… and tons tons tons tons more that I can’t list without pulling my hair out.

LOOK FOLKS, CLIENTS HAVE RESPONSIBILITIES

You, as planners if you are the one representing your client, YOU have responsibilities. Just because you are paying for a service or brought business to an invitation designer (or website designer) doesn’t exclude you from respecting a designer’s time. If you were sent a proof of concept or a proof of an invitation layout or if it was YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to spell check all the verbiage for something that was being sent to print, and it all comes out WRONG, guess who is to blame???

DING, DING, DING!!!!!

YOU!!!! It needs to stop being a thing that just because something is digitally there, in front of you, that it be changed just as easily after you’ve approved it. Sometimes changing just ONE font is the thing that f*cks the rest of the entire design up! If the font shrinks when you change it, as lots of fonts do, then it has to be adjusted … then it has to be changed across all of them … then sometimes that one tiny font change means moving everything up by 100 pixels to make room for the ‘new swish’ of the script or the long tail of the ‘y’ that you didn’t account for BECAUSE THE PROOF WAS APPROVED.

MY POINT???

When you are faced with a proof of concept or a proof that has to go to print, look at it when you have the time to really give it your full attention.

DON’T BREEZE THROUGH IT BECAUSE YOU “TRUST YOUR DESIGNER”

<< that kind of mindset only sets you up to also BLAME them later … and it’s not their fault. If you are sent something to APPROVE before print or before they are replicated, it is YOUR JOB to do just that.

I can’t say it enough times:

CLIENTS HAVE THINGS THEY NEED TO DO - REGARDLESS OF THE FACT THAT THEY ARE PAYING FOR A SERVICE.

We, as designers, can’t tell you if your aunt’s name that you sent us in a Google doc was actually spelled correctly when you typed it out and sent it to us!! << that is something only YOU can do.

And one more thing:

IF YOU DO APPROVE A PROOF AND REALIZE LATER YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE … DON’T EXPECT FREEBIES.

I explained the ‘design process’ above … it’s not as simple as just: Oh, no worries, I’ll just pop that new thing in there … it’ll take 2 seconds … it’s HOURS of work … it’s MONEY SPENT ON REPRINTING in some cases … it’s LAYING IT OUT AGAIN …