I regularly see problems with print documents and with website design that could be easily avoided. Here are three problems I see on a weekly if not daily basis. These problems can range for minor workflow issues and lack of productivity to major print and website failures.

The first problem I see is often with beginning or amateur graphic designers, the tools they choose to use. There is a wide variety of tools available to us, some more appropriate than others. MS Word for instance, is I suppose a decent piece of word processing software. It isn’t however a graphic design tool, it’s almost useless for our purposes. The most significant problem I have with it is that while it gives us some control of our craft it doesn’t give enough. Combine that with Microsoft’s habit of not playing well with others and you get a software dead-end. Software that can’t do the job, and won’t let you easily transfer your work to another media. MS Publisher and other MS products have the same problems.

The second problem I see is designers who haven’t learned the software they’re using. While a learning curve for new software is to be expected, some designers never bother to fully understand the capabilities and limitations of the software they use every day. Modern graphic design software can be very complex, but that’s no excuse for not bothering to learn the basics. There are a lot of features on modern design software that can greatly streamline a designer’s workflow and make their life easier.

Global styles or style sheets are a common feature that I see underutilized. Whether it’s Quark or InDesign for print design or some form of CSS for web work, these styles can make your job much easier. Learn how they work, and use them correctly. I see a lot of work produced in software that supports styles, but does not utilize it. If you regularly make global style changes to documents, this will save you hours if not days. If set up using styles correctly, document formatting can be changed globally with a few minor changes to the style definitions. Change the definition of a style, all text defined by that style changes. If you aren’t using styles then you are taking the longer path, and section by section, sometimes word by word, manually changing the formatting.

The third problem I see often is with print publication. Print specifications, or the lack thereof. If you are designing something for print, there are specifications (or specs) that you need to meet. Whether this job is being printed on the color printer on your desk, or a web press across the country, there are specs. A surprising number of designers don’t meet these specifications. This can occur through lack of training or more commonly lack of knowledge (the specs were never supplied to them). Either way, the print job has problems. Either it is printed without correcting this problem and the job suffers, or it is fixed. It can be fixed by the designer at his expense and loss of productivity, or by someone associated with the printer at the expense of the designer and loss of profit. Both solutions are bad.

The real solution is to know the specifications ahead of time, and this isn’t always as easy as you’d think. Sales people with printing companies don’t always know the specs, or know them incompletely. Desktop printers don’t always list their specs anywhere. Lately I’ve had trouble with print companies giving out what appeared to be complete specs, but which were not in fact complete. When supplied with my files for printing they then gave me the complete specs with a list of things they wanted to charge me to fix. I did manage to convince them of the error of their ways, but I also had to fix the files at my expense. If I’d been in control of printer choice, that job would have moved elsewhere, but it wasn’t. Someone less stubborn or arrogant than I am would have been stuck with some serious charges tacked onto their print bill. It could have been an expensive lesson.

These three things that all designers should know can be summed up in the title of this post, Designers, know thy tools.