It has a bleed. It’s white.

I had a woman come in once or twice to have some stuff output. I gathered that she was a “web designer.” I wasn’t impressed by what I saw. My future dealings with her cemented it.

One day she came in and asked if her business card was still lodged on my computer. Apparently Gavin (my predecessor, who, fantastic guy, not a thing in the world against him, but he didn’t have a lot of practical printing experience) had done them some time back. I did a search and found the only instance was in this dreadful little program put out by Avery, called “Design Pro”. They provide it for use with their pre perforated business card stock. It’s meant for people who really know nothing about graphics software to set their cards ten up. I used it once and that was enough for me. It won’t import certain TIFFs, imports a correctly sized JPEG at four times its size, (thus forcing you to go back and shrink your image to 25% of size), gives you no option to move things if it doesn’t fall exactly within the parameters of the pre perfed cards, there is no option for a bleed, there are no crop marks. Just a lot easier to use a real program to set cards up in.  I could figure out no way to extract her card from this “program”, or how to add crop marks, or more importantly how to get a bleed on it. I couldn’t find an example of a native file, the original JPEG or TIFF that was used. 

I told her that I couldn’t use this card, that it had no bleed and no crop marks. She happened to be standing nearby and saw that the tool bar of Design Pro had a crop tool.
“Why not use the crop tool to make crop marks?”
“Because it is for cropping a picture down, isolating an element from a photo, it has nothing to do with ‘crop marks’.”
“Well it’s a crop tool, isn’t it?”
“Uhm, yes, but it has nothing to do with my ability or lack of ability to draw crop marks.”
“Well, it’s called a “crop tool” isn’t it?”
(At this point it’s starting to feel like I’m arguing with a two year old.)
“Similar name, different purpose.”
“Well Gavin printed them for me before.”
“Be that as it may, but the lack of a bleed meant he probably spent hours and hours painstakingly cutting them, and had to print out double, triple the quantity to get the number he needed. Just not a practical solution.” If I had nothing going on, it would be no skin off my nose to cut them with a ruler and an X-acto knife. But I had no idea whether my day would see me promoted to chairman of the bored, or whether I would be hopping around like a deranged monkey. If I had had to cut them on the abysmal guillotine I had access to there it would have looked horrid.

I printed out a blank eight up business card template, and drew her an example of what a bleed is supposed to be. I explained that if the background of her card was for example red, it needed to extend out beyond the borders of the card. I used a red pen to demonstrate what I meant, shading in a section of the corner. I explained why this was, that it is virtually impossible to cut a hundred cards that do not have a bleed, and not have white slivers show up of various sizes. I also explained that when she set her cards up she needed to simply follow the example of my template, with the spacing and crop marks being the same. I wrote out for her that it needed to be CMYK, and 300 dpi. Gosh, she’s a “designer” I thought. This can’t possibly be too hard for her to set up. I thought that this would help her out, and get her the best looking cards I could possibly produce for her.

She shows up a few days later with a floppy disc (yeah, a floppy disc), and asks me to print her up some cards. I open it up and there is a one up card, a different design than her original card. I check the properties of it and it is a 72dpi, RGB file. I tell her the resolution isn’t right, but despite that, I place it into my Publisher template. (That’s all I had access to there. Sad I know.) It is exactly business card size. No bleed at all. I tell her this, and she proceeds to tell me that the picture box is bigger than the business card.
“Okay, I can see that, but there is no bleed.”
“Yes, there’s a bleed.”
“No there isn’t.”
“Yes, it’s white.”
I think at least ten seconds of disbelieving silence followed.
“Uhhm, a white bleed is as good as no bleed.” I was just stunned.
I popped her floppy disc out and told her that it needed to be eight up, with a bleed, with crop marks, at the least 300 dpi, and CMYK. “Just like the example I gave you.”

And the kicker was that it was a double sided card. Trying to line up two cards front to back, on even the best press would be a tall order. On a machine like the one I had access to there - so close to impossible, it was impossible.  That’s why you put a bleed on stuff. To give you a bit of leeway.

She asked me to print out a colour proof of it anyway. Okay. Stick the disc back in. When it prints out, she proceeds to tell me that the colours are all wrong.
“Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it’s RGB and you’re using colours that don’t show up in the CMYK spectrum.”
“Well it looks fine on my monitor.”
“Yes...because your monitor is RGB. You have colours selected that only show up in the RGB spectrum. Printers work on CMYK, which don’t have as broad a range, and can’t reproduce the colours you’ve selected.”
“Maybe you need to have your printer looked at.”
After a moment of silence I said, “There’s nothing wrong with this printer. It costs more than most peoples cars. You need to use colours that can actually be reproduced by the printing process.”
“Why does this type look so jagged?”
“That’s because the resolution is too low. As I wrote on the example I gave you when you were here last, it needs to be a minimum of 300dpi.”

Despite the fact that I had given her a piece of paper that essentially had “clue” written all over it, she still didn’t have a clue.

I once again printed out my eight up template, drew an example of what the card should look like, wrote down that the bleed should extend approximately an eighth of an inch beyond where the edges of the card were, wrote on it what format and resolution it needed to be, and the email address she could send it to.

Okay, she’s clearly not the brightest bauble in the jewelry box but this should help her out, I thought.

Never received an email, and didn’t see her again for two weeks.

She shows up and asks me “Do you still have my old card on your computer?”
“Uhhmm, yes, but we went over this before. It’s in a format that I can’t print.”
“Fine. Try this then.” She hands me a floppy disc. I stick it into the computer. Check the properties. 72 dpi, RGB. I place it into Publisher. A one up card. No crop marks. No bleed.
“Like I told you last time, I can’t print this. It has no crop marks and it’s one up, which I can correct, but the resolution is too low, it’s the wrong colour mode, and it has no bleed.”
“It has a bleed.”
“No it doesn’t.”
“Yes. It’s white.”
If I was stunned last time, I was flabbergasted this time. It was exactly the same file she had brought in last time. Did she think that I was lying to her before, and that the intervening two weeks would somehow alter a basic tenet of printing?
“Like I told you the last time you brought this exact same file in, a white bleed is as good as no bleed.”
“Okay then. Try this disc.” She hands me another floppy disc. I place it into Publisher. Unlike the last one which had a 1/8" white border around it, this one had no border. It was exactly two by three and a half inches.
“Okay this one has no bleed either.”
“Clearly you don’t know what you’re doing. Maybe I should just go to a real print shop,” she says in a snide, snippy tone. I don’t know what I’m doing?! Uhm, pot and kettle, fire calling. At that point I should have just called her bluff. I sure as hell felt like laying into her, but I bit my tongue.
“Why don’t you just pull on the corners and stretch it out?” she says imperiously.
“Sure. Whatever.”
“Okay I have to go somewhere. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”
I set it eight up, printed out a proof, and ruled it up to show her how stretching out the corners had put some of the type right on or over the edges of the card. And I figured she might also bitch about the colour again. Or how the type looked jagged.

An hour later she comes back. I lay the proof down on the counter.
“What’s this?
“It’s what we in the print trade call a proof.”
“Of what?”
“Of your business cards.”
“Why?”
“Well when you’re either unwilling or incapable of following simple instructions, I have to fix up your mistakes. When I stretch out the corners of your business card, it alters the positioning of everything. It often puts the type closer to, or over the edge, like here in your instance. There is no way that a “real print shop” would do something like go ahead and print all of your cards after making that sort of a change without first showing you a proof for you to check. That’s how it works in a “real print shop.” You look at it and tell us if it’s okay or if something needs to be altered.”
“I don’t think you understand…”
“Oh I understand how things work in a “real print shop” just fine. I’ve been in the trade for twenty years. I know precisely what I’m doing,” I cut her off.
“No you don’t understand…”
“Clearly the only person who doesn’t understand here is you.”
“When I said that I was coming back in fifteen minutes, I meant that I needed my cards immediately.”
“When you said you were coming back in fifteen minutes, you were coming back to look at your proof, whether you realized it or not. There’s no way that I’m about to jump the gun and print all of your business cards after making a change to it, without you first approving it.”
“But I need these cards. Gavin printed them for me once.”
I walked over to the computer and grabbed the example of her card that was there. “Are these two cards even similar? No. It’s a completely different card. When you casually mention to me to stretch the corners of the card, I am aware of what this will do to the basic structure of your design. There is no way that I am about to make an executive decision for you. You look at a proof, you tell me whether it is okay or whether it needs to be changed. You put your signature on the proof that you’re okay with. Then we proceed from there. When you mentioned you were coming back in fifteen minutes you assumed that I would have your business cards done. And I assumed that you, who bills herself as a “print designer” on her website would have the vaguest concept of how to properly set up a file for printing or how things work in a “real print shop.”
“Well I have no cards, I’m completely out and I have a lot of meetings coming up.”
“So a lack of planning on your part makes it a crisis on my part? You left it to the point where you had absolutely no cards left? If you had just followed my very concise instructions the last time and submitted that properly set up file in an expeditious manner, we wouldn’t be at this juncture.”
“Fine I’ll just have to go somewhere else.”
“Why don’t you do that. Maybe the basic rules of printing can be waived for you at a ‘real print shop.’ ” I said, as I gently but definitively tore up the proof. I gave her back her floppy disc.
“Bye now.” She picked up her very official looking briefcase, turned and left. She was so utterly devoid of common sense that she would probably pull the same mind boggling stupidity and haughtiness at the next place.

You know, the fact that she was dense as a rock didn’t bother me so much. Whatever. Not everyone is a genius. But the fact that she started copping an attitude with me to deflect attention away from her stupidity is what really got my dander up. I don’t know what I’m doing. Go take your squeaky voiced arrogance somewhere else, you tactless dolt. At no point did it seem to penetrate her vapid, self absorbed head that none of this was to inconvenience her, but rather to give her the best possible product. Gee, you’re a ‘designer’, so I figure you might want your stuff to look professional. Something you clearly aren’t.

A large part of my education in how printing works was by going to a print shop and asking them how they wanted a job set up. I listened to what they had to say, and did what they asked. It is up to the printer to decide what is and isn’t possible. I can come up with the most fanciful thing imaginable, but if it is beyond the capabilities of the equipment that printer has, it isn’t possible to print it. Work within those parameters.

When I bring in a drawing for a tattoo to the shop and the artists look at it and tell me that certain lines are too close together, or that an aspect of the design need to be opened up a little bit, I go home and make the required changes. I don’t show up two weeks later with the same drawing and think that somehow the basic parameters of that particular reproduction technology have somehow changed. It is up to the tattooist to decide what is and isn’t possible. It’s no skin off their nose whether they tattoo the image as I bring it in. They merely tell me these things, because they want to make sure that it will look as good as it possibly can. They aren’t lying to me, or trying weasel their way out of work. They care enough to let me know what will work best.

I guess I’m smart enough to realize that. Some people will likely never figure it out.

“It has a bleed. It’s white.” Jumping jesus on a pogostick. While it’s great that computers have really democratized what was at one time a fairly arcane practice, it also leads to morons with some pirated software and no idea of what they’re doing, actually trying to convince people they have any business in that business.