How organizing frees us to enjoy big print projects
Every year when Pageant time nears, Susan and Mary get a little excited. That’s because we know we’re about to get a bunch of adorable contestant photos and it’s time to design a fun cover for the Shenandoah County Fair Scholarship Pageant program.
It’s the little things, even as part of a big project! And a bit of organization on both ends makes the whole process a pleasure.
Here’s the overview we sent for this year’s program:
- ALLOW TWO WEEKS FOR SETUP
(It doesn’t take two solid weeks of work; this just guarantees we can fit it in around other projects)- By Aug 4: Early items – cover photo, theme, and excel doc with contestant names
- By Aug 11: Content – contestant pics, ads, and front text pages
- Aug 18: Final approval
- ALLOW ONE WEEK FOR PRINT PRODUCTION
- Ready for pickup Aug 25
Shenandoah County Fair Association Pageant Director Tiffany Newland gives us the theme and a preliminary cover photo so we can start getting creative! And she sends her excel workbook, so we have the names and count for each category.
Our setup
On our end, we have an InDesign document with multiples of four pages, .125” bleed, and page headings for the contestant classes (from Tiny Miss up to Miss). We update the contestant pages to coordinate with the cover design.
Then the contestant photos and the ads arrive via upload or transfer link, and everything slots into place. A couple of proofs later, and we’re ready to print.
We look forward to this project every time, and it’s nice to know the feeling is reciprocated:
I want to thank you all again for an amazing job on the books and for always being such an absolute pleasure to work with. Words cannot describe how nice it is to have vendors that I can rely on and trust, year after year. – Tiffany Newland, Shenandoah County Fair Association
Tiffany, we feel the same about you!
Got a big project in the works?
Give us a call in the planning stage and we’ll make sure the milestones are reasonable and we can easily fit you into our schedule.
540-635-4181 mike@nationalmediaservices.com
