We've all heard of Design Thinking and it's a great way to envision how designers see the world — and how we can help the world see itself. However, there's a practical side that we might call "Production Thinking" that's sometimes hard to teach in design school.
Recently in one of my classes, the topic of designing for production — especially when designing logos — came up.
When designing anything, keeping an eye on how something will be brought into the world is important. If you’re an architect, it doesn’t matter how beautiful your building is… if it can’t be engineered to stand up, no one will ever be able to walk into it and enjoy it. In today’s business environment, a visual identity has to do more than ever before — and this puts enormous strain on the designer to produce something that will stand up to the scrutiny of being faxed as well as animated in a high-resolution display in a million colors. Often simple is best, especially for your first few attempts; but, even as a master craftsman, you might find yourself designing a few variations: one color, web-only, small-size, logotype only, etc… (for a later discussion).
That said, even when envisioning the original brand mark, there are a few practical considerations to keep in mind, namely colors and overall precision… especially as it relates to your desktop printer. Oddly, the world of professional production is much less refined than your desktop inkjet which prints in 9-colors at 2400dpi. A typical printing press prints at 300dpi with four process colors: cyan, magenta, yellow and black — fortunately, though, at blazing speeds. There is no light-magenta in the press-room. These presses also print with a dot screen that is reminiscent of what you might see in a newspaper, which is unlike the random (stochastic) dot pattern of your inkjet which hides the characteristic pattern. This means that the tiny, detailed shape that looks great on your screen and prints well on your inkjet probably won’t look as good when printed on a brochure (or on the web) and you should design for that.
(Traditional line-screen vs. stochastic pattern)
Most printing presses always run cyan, magenta, yellow and black … then add “spot” colors (PMS colors) as extra — typically up to two... a 6-color press is common (an 8-color press is not uncommon, but more expensive to use). Of course, extras always cost extra, so if you can be creative with the basics, you’ll always make a client happy in the end, because a client who can save money is always a happy client. There’s a reason you tend to see a lot of black, cyan, yellow and magenta in logos — they’re “free” spot colors. Since the press always has them loaded, it will not cost extra to run them. So, for instance, if you’re designing a logo for a non-profit company who is notoriously low on funds, designing a 5-color (spot) logo would not be in their fiscal best interest.
The same could be said for tight lock-ups. When printing, a giant sheet of paper is flying through a huge machine at high speeds and you might have a dozen logos spread from edge to edge. Paper is organic and it stretches. If you design something with incredibly tight tolerances — for instance, shapes that have to touch, but not overlap and not spread apart — you are asking a lot of the mechanics of the system to have this happen consistently as the press is putting down each of your colors on a stretchy, fast-moving sheet. It is always best to design with a bit of tolerance for error — in this case a bit of space between the shapes — so that if something is a tiny bit off it will not spoil the print run.
Take, for instance, the below example. Based off of the name of a river in Italy that Caesar famously crossed, Rubicon is a Bay-area non-profit dedicated to getting folks from welfare to work — conquering their past. Given that they are a non-profit, they need to be conscious of overall costs. All things being equal, the two logos below would play out very differently for them in the long run.
The logo on the left, while unique with the pop of bright orange and blue is made of three PMS (spot) colors which would cost extra if they were to add these to a 4-color run like a brochure with color photos. Additionally, if broken down into 4-color (process) colors, the gray and the orange wouldn’t look quite a nice as their original spot colors did. If printed as spot colors, not only would the additional three colors add a significant cost to a traditional 4-color (process) run, but making sure that the shapes meshed perfectly would quite difficult. So, it would be either more costly, not as nice, not as accurate or all three. Try explaining that to your client when they get the brochure back that just consumed 90% of their annual marketing budget.
The logo on the right is made of process black and process cyan — two colors that can be printed as spot colors, but also exist as part of the 4-color process spectrum. This means that any time a typical 4-color press job is run, this logo can be printed in 100% original color without being screened. Additionally, because there is space between the shapes, if there is slight misalignment, it would still look passable in the end. This logo allowed that same brochure to be printed on a smaller 4-color press which means more printers were able to bid on the job and a lower price was able to be had — and even online quick printers (and digital on-demand printers) could be investigated. The logo appeared just as the client had seen it on all of the other materials, so they were not disappointed — they were happy and saved money. The printer even had some extra space on another run later in the day and since it was also a process-color job, they created some free note cards with the logo on top just for kicks — otherwise the trim paper would have gone to waste.
Of the two, which makes for a happier client and gets you a better referral?
Every trade has tolerances and leeway. Carpenters use trim around doors for a reason. Engine builders use shims for a bit of adjustment. Shuttle drivers know there might be a bit of traffic on the freeway… and each build in just a bit of slack so that if there’s something that doesn’t go exactly right that the entire gig isn’t turned upside down. Design is no different, especially when it comes to getting your designs produced. Taking production — especially costs — into consideration up front will not only make life much easier for you but will absolutely endear you to your clients. (Tip: Clients don't care about design awards. They care about costs... and results.)
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