What do you do to proof/prevent mistakes

[Shanarchy]

Hey gang,

I've been making a lot of mistakes lately. This is a somewhat new problem for me and I obviously need to put a better system in place, as this is really becoming a problem. It seems the art end is biting me in the A lately. Not doing it, but missing mistakes. I ran 300 shirts with an obvious spelling error. I was so dialed in on recreating the artwork I guess checking spelling didn't happen. Yesterday I printed 100 shirts and I did not properly prepare the artwork. It was a lot of lettering with an outline. I printed the inside of the letters (think of the letter D) with the fill color when it should have been open and shirt color. I've also made a couple of other art mishaps in the past couple of months.

I'm a real small shop, so there is not a lot of departments to handle them all. It's me doing the bulk of everything and I have a part timer (cleans and coats screens, learning to print) and my other half (girlfriend/boss) here part time. Like every other shop it's go, go, go. But I don't find myself rushing that bad when I make these mistakes.

Help! What are you doing or can you suggest I do to stop making stupid little errors that are very costly in material, labor, and production time.

[mimosatexas]

I try to have another person proof all art (internally), and I literally never print a job without emailing the client a digital version of the final product and have them respond by email with approval (for my records).  Only one glaring mistake has made it through this process, which was on a small order and correctable with a q-tip and some quick color matching (fortunately).  Here and there small art defects slip through, but nothing glaring or obvious, and the times I have noticed and brought it to the attention of the client it has been a non-issue.

I would be very careful NOT having the client proof and formally approve artwork prior to printing.

[Inkworks]

A second set of eyes is key, but to catch separation mistakes they need to be someone familiar with the process.

[Homer]

slow down.

[whitewater]

i second the slowing down..and sending mocks to the customer...holy crap has that saved me a few times!

but i did just do the same last week...when i sepped the art the 'D' s were filled in...even with the mock in front of my printer and she been told to do a test and then scan it to see if it looks good, well she assumed it was fine looking at it upside down...only 15 shirts but i got on her about it too..

[Sbrem]

You have too much to do Shane, me too, as I'm typing this on Sunday in my office. I'm here to work on quotes and and I have an 8 color sep to get out. Also, looking back through emails to find if anything fell through the cracks (I know there's stuff there). For art, we send proofs to the customer for their approval. We implore them to look everything over carefully, and that no question is stupid if they need an answer. But then, after they sign off, and they must reply to the email with the words "It's approved" or similar, it's their responsibility. And Homer nailed it, slow down. By the way, I misprinted 800 hoodies in early December, but it wasn't so bad that they wouldn't take them for cost, labor included. Why? Because I didn't send a proof, because I was going too fast... Lastly, even if they approve it, take a few more seconds to look it over again. Good luck.

Steve

[Dottonedan]

For all those not printing your own art, also make sure to include an 8.5x11 of just the art (on the shirt color).  Printers need to see what it is to look like.  Sometimes blue is intended to print over red to create purple. If they don't see (purple) on the art, they more than likely will print blue to look blue.

Just another example.

[broadway]

I always try to print out a color proof. If i send orders out to contract or if it is a complex design i will print out seps on paper first. I have kept an old tabloid laser printer just for this reason. Most of my customers will swing by and look at digital and paper proofs. I have also started telling customers should not use phones for proofing artwork.

[cclaud3]

After separating out spot jobs from illustrator, I'll drop each page of the PDF in InDesign and use it's Separations Preview. You can know do this in Illustrator, though. Amazing how many paper white vs spot white mistakes I've caught. Quickly clicking through the C,Y,M,K panels will reveal non spot junk in the art.

[Shanarchy]

I do have all customers approving the artwork via e-mail. The spelling error was approved. However, I was recreating their artwork where they had it spelled correct. It was my mistake so I did the right thing.

The other issues I don't see being an approval issue. It seems to be dumb mistakes in separating the colors and printing the films. Not adding proper outline stroke. It looks fine on the screen, but not for print.

Going slower and paying more attention is definitely the key here, but I honestly didn't feel like I was rushing. I wish I was then I can understand why I made these mistakes. It really seem like dumb/air head mistakes. I feel like I need a better double check system in place.

I may need to look into doing my seps like some of you are doing. How does the AI sep preview work?

[alan802]

We've had numerous jobs that had mistakes that we emailed the proof to the customer and they don't look over them too closely.  And even though they approve it and there is a misspelled word or something, it's still on us to make it right and we replace the shirts even though all the fine print on the proof tells them to look at it carefully and that they are giving us the ok to print it just like that.  I guess I'm saying that we have more jobs go bad that the customer misses the problem on the proof than we do where a customer finds an issue within the proof.  Ultimately you need to do what Homer said and have more than one set of eyes look at things.  Two heads are better than one and 8 eyes are way better than 2.

We lost $1700 on Friday because of a misspelled word on some embossed padfolios that we did the artwork for and an ASI company decorated them.  We sent the art to the customer for approval and they said it looked great and there was an obvious misspelling on there that my artist and the sales guy didn't catch, nor did the customer.  It hurts that at least 3 people looked at it and it still cost us a lot of money.  I saw it within 1 second of looking at it when I was told we had a problem.  I still don't know how it got through, but I bet if we slowed down a little bit then it would have been caught.

[3Deep]

One more thing is never, never, never do seps when your tired...I do some of my seps at my home office because of customers coming in and out all day and when I feel my eyes close I stop!!!!.  Sending a proof to customers sometimes ain't worth a hill of beans sometimes they look at the art and not the wording, so I always but in bold letters PLEASE CHECK FOR ALL CORRECT SPELLING, you cats know I can't spell LOL.

Darryl

[mk162]

I had this yesterday, posted it in the shoutbox....

We get art on Tuesday, needed shirts on Wednesday, so I came back to the shop on Wednesday night so they could pick them up.  I get an email yesterday that text was missing off the back.  I reopened the file to try and find it and I couldn't.  I think they either sent me the wrong file or something...of course it was a power point file as well.

I had sent them a proof and they approved it....with changes, so I know they actually looked at it.

There was nothing I could do to fix this.  I turned the shirts in 24 hours from receipt of art and we even proofed it.  You will never stop mistakes from happening, you just have to try and minimize them as much as possible.

[Sbrem]

I do have all customers approving the artwork via e-mail. The spelling error was approved. However, I was recreating their artwork where they had it spelled correct. It was my mistake so I did the right thing.

The other issues I don't see being an approval issue. It seems to be dumb mistakes in separating the colors and printing the films. Not adding proper outline stroke. It looks fine on the screen, but not for print.

Going slower and paying more attention is definitely the key here, but I honestly didn't feel like I was rushing. I wish I was then I can understand why I made these mistakes. It really seem like dumb/air head mistakes. I feel like I need a better double check system in place.

I may need to look into doing my seps like some of you are doing. How does the AI sep preview work?

You may not feel like you're rushing, but there is some distraction or another (or 100) that's taking you off focus. That's what I find in my case anyway. I feel like I'm in control, but no down time between "events". That's rushing. It's not easy to do what we do, especially when you wear a lot of hats. I can do all jobs from head to toe, but there is so much that without the other 8 people around here, it wouldn't happen. You'll be OK I'm sure...

Steve

[mk162]

We are working on an online proofing system.  we are emailing huge attachments that are getting snagged by spam filters.  it would be easier to have an online place where our artist and other staff can see comments left by a customer or their approval and not worry about emails.  It is also a great way of organizing all of the open projects.