From The Archives ~ Topics: studio management
Managing Health and Safety in the Design Studio
This is an excerpt from chapter 18, of Professional Practices in Graphic Design
Graphic designers combine photos, type, and illustrations to make pages, posters, packages, or textile design. Processes used in graphic and commercial art include computer graphics design, illustration, and photo processes, and paste up of mechanicals. Recently, an illustrator friend of mine was working on a job for a major university press. She called the head graphic designer at the press about a problem that could be easily fixed if he would cut and paste a section of photostat. To her surprise, she found that this was not possible because the graphic designer had never cut and pasted anything in his life! This story demonstrates the incredible change that has occurred in the graphic design field. Computers have taken over. They have made skilled paste up and mechanical production workers an endangered species. They also make it possible for small studios and home-based freelancers to compete with established studios. Some people see a certain coldness in computer generated graphics. They prefer to use the old methods in the same way that some music lovers are rejecting CDS and return-ing to vinyl. This chapter will cover health and safety issues of the old methods as well as the new.
Read the full chapter,
Managing Health and Safety in the Design StudioFrom Professional Practices in Graphic Design, Tad Crawford, ed. Allworth Press, 1998. Re-printed with permission of author.
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I'm almost surpirsed by the mention that a Graphic Designer was not able to do some simple manual production work. But I have seen it happen many times myself (and while he said he couldn't do it, we shouldn't over look the possibility that he didn't want to do it).
Many designers I know lack most common knowledge of the importance of details of perfecting mechanicals for print, and print production in general. And I really think that's a bad thing.
I started in this industry on the low end of design, freelancing as a production artist, and working for printing companies. What always amazed me was the common seperation of "design" and "production" departments, and the strict opinions that one should not cross over into the other. While it's more common to see this trend ignored at smaller businesses, most of the big guys I've worked for stick to it like glue.
Graphic Designers should know print production, and Production Artists should have the desire to work creatively - or at least that's what I wanted for myself - and I'm living it now. I do my own design, photo retouching, and see all work through to the end by hiring the printer and delivering the final mechanical files to them.
And I've also paid the highest price of all, in my experience. Six stiches in my right index finger from an Xacto blade, thank goodness I'm left handed.
© 2009 AIGA | 164 Fifth Avenue New York NY 10010 | 212 807 1990
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