About the service
I lay out catalogues, price lists and brochures that go to a printing house without surprises. Work starts with materials and questions rather than with a page: what the publication is for, who will hold it, how many pages are expected, in what shape the product data arrives. I gather photographs, texts, tables and marks, write down what is missing, and agree the format, the binding and the page count so that the volume divides cleanly into printer's sections.
Then comes the skeleton. A modular grid with margins, columns and baselines; running heads carrying the section name, folios and edge markers that let a reader find a group of products without opening the contents. A product card is drawn once as a repeatable pattern: photograph, name, short description, article number, price, property icons. When there are hundreds of positions, pages are assembled from a spreadsheet automatically, so the data lives in one file and a changed price does not mean re-typing a spread. Contents, dividers and cross references come last, once the page order has settled.
Prepress is a separate stage, not a formality: bleed and safety margins, colour profile, correctly built black in small text, image resolution measured at the final printed size, collected and licensed fonts, overprint and imposition in the form the printer asks for. After that the file goes for approval, corrections are collected in one round, and a separate light version is prepared for screen reading.
Three honest limits. Colour on a screen and colour on paper are different things, so responsible colours are approved from a printed proof rather than from a monitor. Images below the required resolution do not go to print: they are replaced with better originals or used smaller on the page. And the requirements of your particular printing house are clarified before layout begins, not after, because bleed, profile and imposition depend on their equipment.
What the work includes:
— interview, audit of materials and a list of gaps;
— format, page count and section plan for the chosen binding;
— modular grid, running heads, folios, navigation;
— repeatable product card with price and article number;
— automatic assembly of a large catalogue from a table;
— contents, indexes and cross references;
— print package: bleed, profile, fonts, resolution, imposition;
— approval round, corrections and a screen version.
Then comes the skeleton. A modular grid with margins, columns and baselines; running heads carrying the section name, folios and edge markers that let a reader find a group of products without opening the contents. A product card is drawn once as a repeatable pattern: photograph, name, short description, article number, price, property icons. When there are hundreds of positions, pages are assembled from a spreadsheet automatically, so the data lives in one file and a changed price does not mean re-typing a spread. Contents, dividers and cross references come last, once the page order has settled.
Prepress is a separate stage, not a formality: bleed and safety margins, colour profile, correctly built black in small text, image resolution measured at the final printed size, collected and licensed fonts, overprint and imposition in the form the printer asks for. After that the file goes for approval, corrections are collected in one round, and a separate light version is prepared for screen reading.
Three honest limits. Colour on a screen and colour on paper are different things, so responsible colours are approved from a printed proof rather than from a monitor. Images below the required resolution do not go to print: they are replaced with better originals or used smaller on the page. And the requirements of your particular printing house are clarified before layout begins, not after, because bleed, profile and imposition depend on their equipment.
What the work includes:
— interview, audit of materials and a list of gaps;
— format, page count and section plan for the chosen binding;
— modular grid, running heads, folios, navigation;
— repeatable product card with price and article number;
— automatic assembly of a large catalogue from a table;
— contents, indexes and cross references;
— print package: bleed, profile, fonts, resolution, imposition;
— approval round, corrections and a screen version.
