How to make good car door handles?

So this is a blog for the graphics arts sector and we talking car door handles: Why?

Well, can you imagine a situation where a car designer creates a new door handle for which the engineering drawings are wrong and the handle is difficult to manufacture efficiently and economically? No, it is unlikely to happen; the design and manufacturing processes are linked, the designers usually working for the company that makes the cars and needing an in-depth understanding of the production processes. But in our industry we would all recognise the opposite: digital files from clients that are incorrect, work designed that is unsuitable for the production process.

Could this be due to the fact that, in most cases, separate companies, often for differing clients, and having different aims and commercial imperatives, carry out the design and production functions in graphic arts?

So, from a printer’s view these issues are the clients’ or designers’ fault?

Easy to think this is the case, but a little deeper investigation uncovers a confused area.

How well are designers trained at college in the print production, technical page creation, colour management and ISO 12647 standard printing conditions? I believe a graphic designer producing ‘fit for purpose’ files for print needs to understand all these areas in depth.

To a great extent there is no ‘pre press’ function in many sectors of the printing industry. The expectation is to receive press-ready PDFs. The PPA’s ‘Pass4press’ specification is a good example of this and has had a positive impact on the technical quality of files supplied to magazine printers.

Now PDFs are becoming more common in the general commercial printing market, but these files often have more problems than ‘open’ application files such as QuarkXpress and Adobe InDesign.

Combine this with the fact that, correctly used, the Adobe CS suite can be a ‘pre-press shop in a box’, so if used incorrectly, one can see where the problems and training issues arise.

So, rather than be negative, even condescending, about poor and incorrectly supplied files, what positive steps can and should a printer be taking to help their clients in this area?

Printers should have a colour management policy, based on ICC profiles and ISO 12647 standard printing conditions. This policy, with its associated ICC profiles and colour settings files for programmes such as Adobe CS, should be available to clients with information on how to install and apply them correctly. This could even be extended to running short training courses in this area for clients’ designers.

The same applies to PDF settings. The PDF job options settings can be supplied to clients in the same way as the colour information, and included in any client training.

Often this type of information is on printers’ web sites, but in many cases the detail is poor or even wrong!

Offering clients this service can only improve the quality of files submitted, and can result in better client retention.

So the printing industry can make good car door handles if the design and production functions can work together as the technical line between these functions becomes increasingly burred.

Finally the design colleges must be encouraged to include the more technical areas discussed here in their curriculum.