[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:02.4] DD: Does your printing need some passion?
[0:00:04.5] NT: Your design some dynamic dimension?
[0:00:07.4] DC: Are you stuck in a CMYK rut?
[0:00:10.9] DD: I’m David Drucker, founder and CEO of highresolution printing and packaging.
[0:00:16.3] NT: I’m Noel Tocci, founder of Tocci Made, Bespoke Print Consulting.
[0:00:20.3] DC: And I’m Deborah Corn, the Intergalactic Ambassador to the Printerverse. Welcome to Making It With Print, the podcast that takes a deep dive into the conception, creation, and production of amazing printed products.
[0:00:33.7] NT: If you can dream it.
[0:00:34.7] DD: You can make it.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:00:38.5] DC: Hey everybody, welcome to Podcasts From the Printerverse, this is Deborah Corn, your Intergalactic Ambassador. More specifically, we are here with the Making it with Print Podcast, and we are here with Noel Tocci from Tocci Made and David Drucker, this evening. He had something to take care of, and Noel is a little under the weather. How are you feeling, sir?
[0:01:01.7] NT: I’m okay.
[0:01:03.5] DC: You sound great.
[0:01:03.1] NT: I’m all great for 45 years, that’s why I don’t feel well, probably, but other than that, I’m ready to go, and I’m really excited about tonight’s podcast because of our guest.
[0:01:11.4] DC: Oh, you just told everybody we have a special guest.
[0:01:13.1] NT: Oh, I’m sorry.
[0:01:14.1] DC: No, it’s all good, we are here with Amybeth Menendez. She is the assistant manager of Print Workflow at Macmillan Publishers, where she supports production through expert-level prepress, color management, and workflow development. She is an Adobe-certified instructor, a G7+ expert, and an Adobe Community Expert who actively teaches designers, students, and professionals how to bridge the gap between digital design and print production.
Through her speaking engagements at events like Creative Pro and her hands-on educational content, Amybeth empowers creatives to understand what it really takes to get from screen to substrate, accurately, efficiently, and beautifully. Welcome to the podcast, Amy.
[0:02:06.7] AM: Well, Deborah, and Noel, thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here, and if there’s one thing that I do enjoy talking about, it is ink on paper, and that end-to-end workflow, and how we make it all happen.
[0:02:19.1] DC: Excellent. A little disclaimer, the views of Amy Menendez has nothing to do with Macmillan Publishers. So, she just happens to work there. Okay. So, we really wanted to speak to you about design, education, and how we’re it relates to print production. So, before we get to that, though, can you please, you know, give us some more background about you and this whole teaching aspect of your world?
[0:02:48.4] AM: Well, Deborah and Noel, I’ve been in the printing industry, I hate to date myself, but my father was in print. He worked for Crossfield, so I was working in the demo center when I was like 13 years old, and back then, we made color keys and Cromalin proofs, and I learned about separation. So, I knew about the backend, and I knew about, like, how the ink on paper came together.
And you know, I basically like, grew up looking at a newspaper through a loop, and my father going, “You see that? That’s the magenta hanging on that news day, you know?” Like, I grew up looking at things like, you know, different than like a normal child would because everything was like, through a loop. We had like printing museums and like, you know, old DOS and computers and like, you know –
[0:03:37.7] DC: You know, ink sniffers, did you sniff everything that you got?
[0:03:41.0] AM: We were ink sniffers, we were, you know, card –
[0:03:44.7] DC: Paper weight –
[0:03:46.0] AM: Paper weight tapping people, like, I could listen to the sound of you know, the tap of stock and determine like, the paper weight, you know?
[0:03:54.7] DC: Wow.
[0:03:55.5] AM: Yeah. Literally, like, you know, but I had this like, fascination, I loved it, and I’ve always been creative, and so back on, I got my first desktop publishing apprenticeship back when there were unions, you know, on Varick Street for a company called Bengal Graphics and this was like, way before 9/11. My boss was out in a span; he was like one of the greats, and they really gave me a start, and I worked nights.
And I learned retouching, and I learned, you know, there was brisk and like, I learned, you know, manual trapping, and I got the basics of it. So, that began my journey in prepress, and then I worked at a couple of different companies. You know, I worked for Pictorial, they were a big company out in New Jersey, and they had web and offset, and I worked in large formats. So, I learned, like, how to set up.
You know, I’m a master at like, building templates, and you know, like, anything, the bigger, the better. I could tell you a funny story about large format when we go through this. So, I basically learned like all different aspects of the industry, and then I was working at Candid Litho, great company to work at, and I got hired to run, to be a manager of their large format department. Pictorial had just closed, they got devastated during Sandy.
They got like, four feet of water, and so they just like, fully never recovered from that, and I went to go work for Candid and I learned the whole large format and I ran that department, and I really loved it. I loved like knowing how to do everything. From offset to digital, to web, to you know, to imposition, to setting up files. You know, I’m a creative, like, I’ve always had like my little side hustle where I design and create things.
You know, I’m a creative director for a dog rescuer, I’ve been doing their, like, you know, point of purchase in their marketing, you know, for like about 15 years now as well. So, like, I’ve always been on both sides of the scope, and Candid, I live in the boroughs, I live in the Bronx, and Candid ended up relocating out, all the way on Long Island, on the south shore. So, a friend of mine was like, “You know, I know a publishing company.”
And honestly, I have to say that I never had a desire to work in publishing. I just like big and better, you know? But it just shows you how, like, you know, the journey in your career, like, just opens up like, you know, waterfalls, and like, it just opens up like, your mind to like, all these beautiful things, and they were like, a friend of mine. One of the ladies that work production for Candid was like a friend of mine, just went for a job.
It’s at a publisher’s, you know, she knew I was trying to – thinking about, like, trying to find some place that would be easier to commute to, and they’re looking for somebody to teach their designers how to set up files for print. All right.
[0:06:49.9] DC: Sounds perfect.
[0:06:52.5] AM: Right. So, I was like, “Sounds perfect.” You know, and then when I read the job description, it was about, like, 50 or 60% of training and also, doing title work, so being a finisher. So, like anything that was too complicated for the design teams to set up, so I still got to do my prepress, I still get to do my prepress on a daily basis, but I also get to teach people the process.
So, along that journey, I said, “Well, you know what? You know, I’m always looking to improve myself, I’m always learning, I always stay on top of all the new applications.” So, I said, “I really want to become an Adobe Certified Instructor.” You know, I figured, you know, how great is that for my company to be able to say, “The person that is actually training you as an Adobe Certified Instructor.” And I’ve kept up on my certifications for like over six years.
I became a G7 certified expert, and then, recently, when they rolled out the G7 plus certification, which included the extended gamut, I added that to my repertoire of certifications, and I continue to just, you know, learn and along that journey as well. So, besides teaching for the last eight and a half years at my job, you know, to the designers, and I do everything from best practices, file setup for jackets and covers, to setting up embellishments.
You know, to training the production teams, to you know, how to set up special effects and bump plates, to you know, all different, you know, niches, you know? There are camera raw classes or workflow classes, and a lot of my job is also creating. You know, so my title is assistant manager at Print Workflow. So, what we do is we try to automate any of the processes that, like, the design teams may figure, think is a little bit, you know, technical.
Like, create, you know, creating high-res bitmap files or just ink and see the action. So, anything that I can automate that can give the designers time to like be more creative, I’ve like incorporated in their workflows. So, we have like a whole process, everything is pretty much standardized, but we’re always constantly, you know, upskilling. I’m fortunate to work for a company that believes in upskilling their employees.
And we constantly have a robust program of upskilling the teams that work within us because, again, I also – I find it the same, even with people that have been in the industry for a long time, as well as students that I mentor in various programs. So, along this journey, I’ve gotten introduced, and I feel like I’ve been on the board for the Graphic Communication Scholarship Foundation on the education committee for maybe, almost a decade.
I thought it was eight years, but it’s actually been longer, and I also sit on the board of the Advertising and Production Club, APC NYC, as well, and they raise money to give students scholarships and one of the things that we do at that GCSF, the Graphic Communication Scholarship Foundation, is we run an education program to teach the students. We want to empower them, you know, with the training that’s actually like a gap in the educational program.
So, we work with New York City Tech College. You know, this past year, we gave out like over 19 scholarships, and we’re also partnering with Fiery, and Fiery came in and worked with our students, and gave them a six-month program, and cut sheet certifications. So, they actually got to, you know, use virtual Fiery rips and run. They had to, like, it wasn’t like an educational program where you could just watch the video, and then like, ChatGPT your answers.
Like, you had to like, go through and click through everything, and then – so, it was like practical hands-on education. So, you know, we try to teach our students like that end-to-end workflow. I mean, that’s what I love. I love to be able – and I think like, the problem with the schools is that there’s so many things to learn in the application, and just like, just even like, an application fundamentals, that they don’t often teach how to design for different, you know, output intents.
Whether it’s web or whether it’s print or whether it’s digital, you know? So, people are just designing, and then they think that everything’s going to come out the way they see it on screen, and so it’s so important, you know, like, to teach these people you know, that it’s okay to use all these beautiful tools and transparency and layer effects, and you know, that these applications give you.
But you know, depending on your color space, depending on your gamut, you know, like, all of these need to be taken into consideration, you know, so that you’re realistically managing your clients or your own expectations, you know, when it comes to the final printed piece. So, I mean, this year, we delivered over eight or nine different educational programs to the students from the GCSF, and you know, by the end of the year, I was wondering why I was so tired because you know, it takes a little while, though.
[0:12:22.5] DC: You’re leaving it over on the field, as they say, and I, for one, appreciate that there are people like you out there in the world, and even with people like you out there in the world, submitting files is still a big problem in the printing industry.
[SPONSOR MESSAGE]
[0:12:39.5] DC: Girls Who Print provides women in print and graphic communications with information resources, events, and mentorship to help them navigate their careers and the industry. As the largest independent network of women in print and a nonprofit organization, our global mission to provide resources, skill-building, education, and support for women to lead, inspire, and empower has never been stronger or more accessible. Through our member platform and program, as well as regional groups forming around the world, your access to Girls Who Print is just a click away. Gentlemen, you are most welcome to join us as allies. Get involved and get empowered today. Link in the show notes.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:13:25.6] DC: Noel, before we move on, do you want to make a comment about that storied career you just heard about?
[0:13:32.0] NT: I think it’s amazing, you know? And I got dragged into it, not that you got dragged in. I think it’s lovely, and I know Amy from a couple of places, and I know her background, and I think it’s so fascinating. Once you’re in it, people think, “Well, it’s print.” You know, it’s not. There’s so many aspects of it, and since, and Amy, I’ve been in it a lot longer than you, but you’ve been in it a long time, before computer to plate, I’m guessing.
It was a different world, and the interesting thing is, you were snapping paper and smelling ink, and talking to you your dad about all your old school print stuff. You’re probably – were in the shop like I used to be with a guy, with a missing finger, that’s how you knew he really knew how to run the press.
[0:14:10.5] AM: Yeah.
[0:14:10.9] NT: And now, the side you’re in is the most sophisticated side of it, you know, it’s not complicated, but you just embraced the whole other 180-degree side of it, right? Because you’re in probably what a lot of people think the most complicated side of it is, right? You know, I care all about extended gamut and all of that, and I’ve taught a fair amount. You know, I was an adjunct at NYU.
I still guest speak at all the design schools, and I’ve worked with designers for 45 years, to try to get them to understand how to interface with the print world, and there’s been this void in the middle, and a big part of it is, what you do, right? Releasing files, it’s ridiculous how there aren’t more people like you doing it. You know, what I found and what I find is, you know, they didn’t, all the design schools like I used to be hired at the design schools to teach a course for a semester.
You know what they say? They said, “We don’t have enough time to teach design.” Particularly, like you said.
[0:15:12.4] AM: Right.
[0:15:12.8] NT: The advent of all the new programs and the Adobe suite and all of that. They just don’t have time for it or room in the curriculum, but it’s really the worst time to drop it, because it’s a little more complicated than ever, right? Back in the day, you released a Bainbridge board with a tissue on it, you know? And then it went to film, and then somebody in prepress figured it out.
There’s so many special things that you touched on that can be done, Amy, and you mentioned transparency and all these other things, they don’t always all apply when you start to put ink on paper, and so to have that translator, right? And you’re actually a teacher, but you’re also a translator because you’ve been in the print world, and that’s the best way to understand it, and I just – I get excited when people like you are excited about it.
I know David is, and I know you are, Deborah, because it’s not easy, but it’s like anything else you become good at, and I don’t think you have to find somebody. Like, Amy’s my buddy, she’s teaching me, she’s showing me. Find somebody you like and you respect, let them mentor you, show them what you know. If we lose that, and you know, and I love AI and all of that, but everybody thinks there’s just a solution and a button.
Sometimes there’s no substitute for failure, and doing it the wrong way to learn the right way, and if you meet somebody like that, listen to them. I mean, Amy has seen it all, from her side, like, I’ve seen it all from my side, and people like us, and you too, Deborah.
[0:16:40.6] DC: Well, I’ve heard it all.
[0:16:42.8] NT: Well, right, but you just want everybody to just pull the same direction and learn from what’s out there. So, yeah, I love hearing that, Amy. I just – and anybody who is passionate like you are about what you do, just has all of my respect, and I think it’s good. You know, you’re spending your time, and you’re exhausted, and you know what? You get paid to do your job.
And I know you do way more than your job by all of the good work you do with the, you know, the scholarship foundation, and I know I was involved with APC with you. It’s good to give back. So, it’s great to have you on the call. Sorry to be so long-winded, though.
[0:17:14.7] DC: No, you’re good. We’re all APC here. I’m on the advisory board, you’re on the regular board. We’re all APC. Okay, I’m curious, you work at a publishing company. So, one might assume that you’re creating book jackets and printing books. But I’m sure there must be a ton of other materials that we’re not even talking about.
[0:17:33.6] AM: Oh, yeah.
[0:17:34.8] DC: So, can you just like, tell us, like, what goes on there in a publishing company with print?
[0:17:40.6] AM: I love going to like, some of the job fairs and doing like, outreach. I mean, I even do that, like, with my company because it’s so incredible, and that’s one of the things that, like, I just was so like, had blinders on. I just thought, you know, and books are beautiful, like, there is nothing more rewarding than walking down the hallways of my company, which are just lined with colorful books, with embossing and edge printing and everything at foil edge printing.
And you know, printed on metallic paper with different opacities of white ink underneath, and when you just see like, everything that you worked on, like, just the end-to-end, right? The designer had it up here, and you go help them manifest it to actual ink on paper. Like, that end-to-end, like, it is just so rewarding. Like, I love it. But publishing is not just books at all. You know, there is marketing, there is, you know, ad promo.
There is advertising, they’re special editions, there’s box sets, there is packaging, like there is so many different types of like, creative departments, you know? With inside that does, you know, there’s a whole social media side of it. There is audio books. You know, we have like, in-house video studios and audio recording studios, and we have famous authors that are coming in and recording their books.
So, one of my messages would be not to always, you know, have that tunnel vision, and to be open to new things because working in publishing has really broadened so much of my skills as well, because I’m working with so many diverse groups that I need to be able to help, you know, individual designers with their different needs and designing for different outputs, whether it’s video or yeah.
[0:19:33.1] DC: Noel, David, and I presented at Digital Book World a few years ago, and actually, so many of your colleagues were in the room, and what we found out is that the digital producers, which is what they are, they love the idea of promoting their podcast and the audiobooks with print. They just didn’t think about it, you know? Because they kind of live in the digital world. So, is that becoming more integrated on your end? Like, you can promote an audiobook through print, there’s a loyalty program, and all of those types of things.
[0:20:04.1] AM: Yeah, absolutely. I think everything is all tied in together, you know? So, the audiobooks are selling the actual hard copies of the book. The social media, you know, marketing, is selling the, you know, the audiobooks, and the print books, and everything actually is all integrated, and you know, feeds off each other, and when they talk about like, you know, print is not dead.
You know, my company in general has had like three of their best years ever, coming out of the pandemic, and including print sales. Not just like, you know, EPUBs and you have EPUBs as well, you know? And there’s a whole group of people that work on that. But people still love to love everything about it.
[0:20:46.5] DC: Yeah. Okay. So, you know, Noel mentioned before, ink on paper. But print has really ink on anything now.
[0:20:53.3] AM: Yeah.
[0:20:54.2] DC: So, with that being said, what are some of the most common mistakes in the file creation, regarding what you’re printing on, you know? I guess, knowing what you’re printing on would be the first thing, correct?
[0:21:09.1] AM: Knowing what we’re printing on, you know, so one of the first things that, like, we always ask, like, production designer is, “Where is your file printing?” You know, like, what stock is it printing on? Because, like, some of the longer runs are still getting printed like overseas, like R&R Donnelley in Asia or something like that, or like the interiors. You know, they may be picture books, but you know, they’re printed on uncoated stock.
So, like, you have to apply those profiles before you do color corrections. So, like, all these things need to be like, thought of, before you, you know, spend all of your money getting like, all these wet proofs and like, you know, things don’t look good and like, you know, because all these questions, like, were not asked, you know? Even like, foil stamping on different substrates, like, really matters.
I mean, I personally, my job now, don’t do like any dye sub, you know, like printing on fabrics or anything like that, but I do do that like outside of work. So, like, again, like, every substrate has like a different profile, like people don’t think about that. They’re like, “Oh, just CMYK or RGB.” No, you know, like, you’re printing on like fabrics, or you know, your colors need to be like a textile substrate color, you know?
So, they’re like, so many things to – again, like, these are all the things because we’ve been in that world, that we think of, you know, so that again, we can deliver realistic expectations to our clients.
[0:22:38.3] DC: I just have one more question, then Noel, I’ll let you jump in here. So, you mentioned the production designer is the one talking directly to the printer? You don’t have a –
[0:22:46.1] AM: No no no, not a production designer.
[0:22:47.9] DC: Okay.
[0:22:48.7] AM: The production, like you know –
[0:22:49.8] DC: Like, the print producers. Okay.
[0:22:51.9] AM: Our print producers, you know, like people that are writing up the jobs and running up that –
[0:22:54.3] DC: Yes, that’s what I used to do in the agencies.
[0:22:56.5] AM: And like, figuring out the cost, yeah.
[0:22:58.5] DC: Yeah. Okay, because I was just like, my God, if they’re also buying print, that’s definitely a new skill going. I mean, tied together, it does make sense in a little, but not if they have to seek out vendors. If they have the vendor pool, then it would make more sense.
[0:23:12.2] AM: No no, we pretty much have contracts with a specific vendor.
[0:23:16.4] DC: Yeah. Noel?
[0:23:18.4] NT: You know, I like to dumb things down, Amy. You said something really important, people, you know, we used to think that you made perfect files, and then just go ahead, and take them, they’re perfect. I make the best files in the world. Go do anything with them; it’s not the paper.
[0:23:31.5] DC: Anything, anything.
[0:23:32.3] NT: You don’t, you’re going somewhere. Do you get in the car, and do you plan where you’re going, and what’s it’s going to take to get there? How much gas, are you going to the right – bring the right clothes, everything else, and people go, “Well, yeah, that’s obvious.” Well, it’s just as obvious in our world. If you’re going to try, and you mentioned, you know, opaque white under, there’s so many things.
You want to hear, “What are you trying to do?” Where is it? I mean, you’re in that world, right? Is it going to be dye sub, is it going to be offset, is it going to be – does it even matter if it’s Asia? Is it web? You can adjust those files. So, I take files, I want them done, and we redo them; we want all, but I do it at a very high level. We want to do all the conversions. You know, summertime is R&R, you got to give someone a high-res PDF.
Well, good luck. All you have now is your printer; it’s just an output unit, it might as well be a copier. You have just tied their hands, right? So, but you need to know that on your end. In other words, you need to know what you’re trying to make, and there’s so many different things you can do to make things, and you’re right, it’s not just ink on paper. It can be everything from dye sub to large formats, people printing on glass now, rugs.
[0:24:41.4] AM: For surface, that can serve it. Yeah, so much.
[0:24:44.7] NT: A good file – a good file is not one that some genius who thinks he makes the best files in the world makes a good file that it was made with an ear to what was going to be needed, and you know that, right? You talk to the – I knew that you talk to the guy printing on the web. Well, what – you know, how do you get the best results? What do you find works best in your, you know, what do you print best?
What works best, what goes through your shop the best? And what you find out, and if you sit people down, I have taken designers that think they’re the best in the world at files, you sit them down in any shop, I don’t care if it’s an offset or web, whatever you’re doing, all the files come into the shop, and there’s always a couple of guys in prepress that have to open them, and see what they’re about to try to do.
And if you sit the designer next to them, and you know, you’ve been telling them for a year, “Oh, please do this.” I went through it today. “Please put the foil stamping in a separate layer, black, vector art, hundred percent.” You know, one of the biggest design firms in the world today, I was laughing. I go, “Really, yellow?” But the point is, if you sit them down next to the operator, and they go, “Oh, that’s what you’re going to do?”
“Right.” “Don’t you find that you know, the light goes off,” and they go, “Oh, I would have made the files this way.” “Well, we’ve been telling you for a year.” You know what I mean? But when they’re like, in it, that’s why mentoring and hands-on and teaching is so important because, I mean, I’m that way. You don’t know it until – right? You don’t know the flame is hot till you stick your hand in it, that’s the way I am.
[0:26:08.3] AM: Yeah, or you don’t know you did it the wrong way until it prints.
[0:26:12.6] NT: Really, and especially printers go, “Oh, we’ll just charge them. Oh, their files are” –
[0:26:15.8] AM: Right.
[0:26:16.3] NT: I’ve seen it a thousand times in my career; their files are a mess. “Oh, we’ll just bill them for it.” Well, call them up and go, “Listen, I love you. I’m going to fix this. Can I come over and talk to you about your files?” Instead, they just fix it, and nobody learns anything, right? And I find designers are some of the smartest people in the world, right? They’ll do it, they just don’t know. How would they know?
[0:26:37.3] DC: Well, there’s designers, and then there’s production.
[0:26:39.9] NT: Right, the big void.
[0:26:41.2] DC: Digital production, which makes the files printable. I mean –
[0:26:45.2] NT: Right, they –
[0:26:46.3] DC: Those two groups don’t always talk to each other. Either there’s definitely times that we’ve gotten files from the designers and we’ve just looked at them and go, “Huh.” So, who is going to go back with the ways we can actually print this because –
[0:27:00.2] NT: Right.
[0:27:00.4] DC: We can’t print this. I think I mentioned, there was a T-shirt with 17 colors on it, it was a bad thing. So, they just didn’t understand the process; they were just making it nice and pretty.
[0:27:09.7] NT: But it’s not even that, too, because the printer may go, “Wow, if I had known they were trying to do this, we might go a different way, on a different press, a different process.”
[0:27:17.5] DC: That’s true. At the time, though, it was just a screen press. So, it’s literally.
[0:27:21.4] NT: No-no, and that’s 17 colors, that’s –
[0:27:23.0] DC: Yes, I know.
[0:27:23.3] AM: That’s a lot of passes.
[0:27:25.0] DC: They make their own colors up in the agencies, you guys know that.
[0:27:29.3] NT: Yeah, that’s not going to register.
[0:27:30.4] DC: No, it doesn’t.
[SPONSOR MESSAGE]
[0:27:33.8] NT: Hi, I’m Noel Tocci, founder of Tocci Made. The printing industry has changed quite a bit, and I’ve learned a lot since I joined my brother’s small but mighty printing company in Newark, New Jersey, back in 1980. Over the years, while focusing primarily in the design and creative communities, I’ve come to understand and believe wholeheartedly that powerful, effective, and impactful print communication always lives at the intersection of great design, appropriate materials, and thoughtfully curated execution.
Making beautiful work is a journey from concept, or idea, to desired result. Tocci Made is here to help you find your way and create work that is not only effective but something you can be proud of. Head to toccimade.com and find out how we can help.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:28:19.5] DC: So, Amy, can you actually give some advice to the printers out there who are getting bad files? I do know that in my career, I have never been charged for it; they just fix it, and we just go about our lives, and we never know that anything is wrong until we request the file to print it somewhere else, and then all of a sudden, all hell breaks loose, “It took us six hours to fix that file; we’re not giving it to you unless you pay us for it now.”
[0:28:47.4] NT: But they’re stupid; if they just showed you, they’d keep you as a lifelong customer.
[0:28:51.2] DC: I’m just letting you know my experience. I agree with you, Noel, but that’s what happens. A lot of printers just fix it and move on with their lives. So, Amy, where do you fall on that? Should they just fix it and go on with their lives, should they have a price for fixing it, they try to tutor people, a couple of times, before they start trying to help them to fix it or should, you know, everybody just, you know – a lot of times, they’re just like, “Just give me the file so I can print it and get my check,” you know?
[0:29:21.5] AM: I’ve been on both sides of that. Because I’ve worked at printing companies and ran prepress departments, where you know, I also love to be hands-on, you know? Like, I love to troubleshoot with the file, I love to fix a file, and I also love it, like, when I do happen to get files from a customer, and they are basically set up properly. Like Noel was saying that, “I got a foil like, you know, on its own layer, living on the art, you know, living on the art on top of the art.”
So, even though, but they’re like, “Why does it need to be on the same page of the mechanical?” Oh, because it needs to track, even if it’s a stamping plate, you know? Like, so I’ve been in the prepress side where you know, like, an offset printing, a lot of times, like, the turnaround, you don’t have time to go back to the client and say, you know, like when something’s supposed to be on press in two days, and you’re working on like a 64 pager, or 50, you know, whatever, you know 56-page magazine.
You don’t have time to go back to the client, but I would always go back – in a printing company like production is get – you know, bringing the files into the prep department. I’m going to say, you know, like, all this time was spent fixing all these things, you know? Like, your job could have went through. You know, we could have worked on so many more files, right? You’re also bottlenecking the prepress department, right?
So, like, by not speaking up and letting the client know whether you’re offering to come show them, you know, like, to do tutoring, like, with the clients, or a lot of companies now actually, like, it’s always good to have, like, information on your website. You know, have the file requirements, like, you know, file specs, how do you want, like, different files going for different outputs, whether it’s web, whether it’s digital, whether it’s offset, whether it’s large format.
What are the file specifications, whether it’s packaging, whether it’s color resolution, like Noel, like he just wants native files, and Noel would rather, you know like, have RGB. I, too, if I’m doing color corrections, I want RGB files, you know, like –
[0:31:12.1] DC: You have to.
[0:31:12.8] AM: Yeah, and you can’t put color back in the gamut if you’re squeezed out, right, Noel?
[0:31:17.0] NT: Yeah, absolutely.
[0:31:18.4] DC: You have to be touching –
[0:31:19.0] NT: Because I want – I know –
[0:31:20.1] AM: You don’t want to bring out the color and then give you a file, and then –
[0:31:23.4] NT: One of the little tricks that we profile for certain papers and certain presses.
[0:31:27.0] AM: Yeah, right, exactly. So, you know it’s tricky because a lot of times in a printing company, like just with the fast pace of things, you know, like you need to fix it because things need to get on press. Where I’m working, so like, the thing that I love about the place that I work is that the first thing I would say to a designer is, “Let’s jump on a call, and I’ll show you how to set it up,” you know?
Or even like, when I’m explaining a lot of my, like, predictivity actions, whether they’re [inaudible 0:31:55.7] actions or just creating like effects plates actions, I will always go through and show you what these automations do so you understand them, you know, so that you are able to set them up by yourself. So, like maybe you’re working in a place that you don’t have like the actions installed into them.
But so, you understand what they’re doing, and like, how they work, but so like, I’m more of a hands-on because I want people to learn, you know? And I have some designers that can pretty much give a print-ready file.
[0:32:30.9] DC: That’s incredible.
[0:32:32.0] AM: Yeah, and it makes me proud. It makes me proud.
[0:32:35.0] DC: You should be proud.
[0:32:36.0] AM: Yeah, and it’s very rewarding, and then I love when, you know, the new designers are like, we get interns, and then we hire a lot of our own interns, and like we groom them from the floor up, and like to see them blossom and grow, and actually learn, and like because we foster an environment of actually learning how to set it up, there are some publishing companies that do still have separate prepress departments, you know?
Like, they have the art departments, and then it goes right to prepress, but I just feel like you know, I’m grateful that I work somewhere we’re actually empowering, like our designers, to learn how those file, and why we’re setting things up the way we do, you know?
[0:33:19.8] NT: Not to design in a vacuum, and that a lot of times is, “Well, I’m a designer. I’m done.” Well, you’re not done, right? And so, you’re keep – to communicate, and to understand that they are part of something bigger, and what they did is very special, but it can go the rest of the way on a better journey, right? And probably turn out better if they communicate, and they listen to what she said, right? If they prepare it for the handoff, right?
[0:33:47.3] DC: Or, well, they should know anybody who’s creating anything; she has to know in the beginning, you know, the whole process, and how it finishes, as they say. This question is actually for both of you. I was at a printing event recently, and I have to tell you the print samples were horrible.
[0:34:04.8] NT: Oh.
[0:34:05.4] AM: Really?
[0:34:06.2] DC: Yes, when did the art of color correction go away?
[0:34:12.8] NT: Let me tell you something, and you go, I’ll let you go, ladies first, Amy, but you know, I’ve seen more and more of that. I go, “Am I getting more snobby after 45 years, or am I, my printing is getting better?”
[0:34:22.1] DC: No, I think people have stopped doing it. Amy?
[0:34:25.6] NT: I see so much average stuff that’s –
[0:34:28.2] DC: It’s horrible.
[0:34:28.7] NT: And it’s not cheap to do.
[0:34:31.2] AM: No, I know. I just did a – well, it’s published now. So, I made that for work, we did – we spent like since last Thanksgiving, you know, color correcting like 240 images for a Kobe Bryant book that like, you know –
[0:34:46.2] DC: That has to look good.
[0:34:47.9] AM: Yeah, and I’m working on something else, you know, outside of work right now too, that you know, they want to color correct 260 images. Like, yeah, but I agree with you. Like, in general, if you pick up like just – and even like, you know, folders and some packaging, like I think everything is – I don’t know, you know?
[0:35:11.2] NT: Dumbed down.
[0:35:12.2] AM: Yeah.
[0:35:13.1] DC: I honestly think that automation is killing creativity in a lot of ways, and there are people out there who think that the press or the RIP or the prepress process will automatically because the printers’ calibrate it to this certain thing. So, no matter what goes in there, it will adjust it, and I always say to people, it’s still garbage in, garbage out. It doesn’t change.
[0:35:40.3] NT: You take the color theory and all of the craftsmanship out of it, and they think you can by pushing the button, and it’s wrong. I’m going to tell you something, my phone, I’m busier than I’ve ever been in my life, a dime for every time someone calls me, and says, “You know what? I just – my stuff is just not looking great, and I see other stuff not just yours, why does it look better?”
You know what I mean? And I’m going to tell you something really fast, you’re both going to get a kick out of it, I did a big book last week, and I was on press, and we rushed everything, and we’re on press, and we went in, and we tweaked all the images, and I have a guy in prepress spend, and he’s a professional photographer for 30 years, right? And he made the changes with the the color and everything.
I go, “They need some help, right?” So, we were talking about what he’s doing, and he did his magic, and then I was coming in early in the morning, 6:00 in the morning, the guy at night, so he tweaked all the images, right? Made it PDF, high-res PDF, oh wow, night and day. Side by side, wow, you really gave them, we call it giving them love, right? Get on press, I go, “Kind of looks like ass. I don’t understand, what, you lose your touch?” And I was joking around.
And then I slap him, and then we recognized, “Wait a minute, we changed the crop on that photo, and it’s wrong. Stop the presses.” We went inside, the guy at night neglected to link all the new images, ripped plates, so it was as they were. So, when I got you guys, was what you were just talking about, Deborah. I got what came in printing on the press, now, uncoated premium paper, and then I got what we tweaked when we made the plates because we realized, you know, nothing linked. You know what I mean, right? The new and the corrected images.
[0:37:15.4] DC: Yeah, of course.
[0:37:16.2] NT: So, now we have some printing of what came in from the client, and I compare it to the sheets, just giving it some love, which didn’t take a long time, night and day, and that’s what I’m talking about. It doesn’t cost more to have a process that brings everybody into the picture, right? That hey, what if, you know what I mean?
[0:37:35.6] DC: Yeah, I do. I mean, I think the prepress people could go into Photoshop and do a little curve action. I mean, what I keep seeing is just blown-out images. That’s what the problem is: there’s no definition.
[0:37:47.4] NT: They don’t have shape, right?
[0:37:48.2] DC: There’s no definition, there’s – if there’s supposed to be human skin tones, they are not, you know, there are just very weird things going on, and they’re samples too.
[0:38:00.7] NT: Right.
[0:38:01.2] DC: Printing with them. I’m like, “What in God’s name is going on here?” No, I don’t know, I haven’t –
[0:38:08.7] NT: No, no, but a good picture –
[0:38:09.2] DC: I don’t accept this.
[0:38:10.4] NT: Unless it’s like all black and everything, a good picture should have highlight, quarter tone, you know, a regular picture, highlight, quarter tone, mid-tone, three-quarter tone, and shadow, and you see a lot now, especially stock photography, it all lives in the middle. You can give it all the ink in the world, which is the trick, but if there’s nothing really, no highlight, you don’t have the shape that you –
[0:38:31.2] DC: That’s why you put it into color correction.
[0:38:33.5] NT: Recorder against shadow if you have to plate all of those, right? And that’s part of the problem, and it’s just a curve usually, and it’s night and day. People go, “Wow, you got a new photo.” No, we just treated this one,” but that’s part of the problem, and you’re right, it’s about I get process, and I get, you know, well, just go, “You do this, you do that.” But I think there’s too much being done on the front end.
Like, when you give somebody a high-res PDF, how is someone that’s creating that PDF supposed to know what I just described? They don’t, right? And the printer takes it, and he rips plates, and he prints it, and he sends a bill, and he gets paid, and since the pandemic, there’s a lot of that. “I don’t want to play with designers.” That’s not playing with designers to do what Amy’s doing, to get people empowered, to make things correctly, and go, “Hey, you know what? I know that this is going on uncoated paper, or it’s going on a web. Should I do something different?”
[0:39:25.9] DC: Yes, yes, you should.
[0:39:27.6] NT: Damn straight, you should, and that’s good that you’re showing people, Amy, or they probably ask the question, right?
[0:39:32.8] AM: Yeah. Well, we did, yeah. I teach color correction, I teach about white balance and contrast curves, and all the things. Looking at the information, like in Photoshop, in your curves, or in your levels, and see where the pixels or the colors are blown out, that make those images look so flat, you know? Like, there are ways you could actually bring the contrast back in an image without even looking at the image just like understanding their curve, or yeah, you know like just seeing where the color information stops, like, in the channels.
Like, there are just ways to make my image pop, you know? And of course, bring it in balance, you know? And then all –
[0:40:12.3] NT: It’s understanding, right? Like I said.
[0:40:14.0] AM: Yeah, but –
[0:40:14.3] NT: I said it at different –
[0:40:15.6] AM: Those are some of our required classes, is the color corrections foundation, and you know, so we’re really trying to help people understand as well.
[0:40:24.6] DC: Amy, would that automatically become part of the process, or is it still up to the designer to decide whether or not that image needs any retouching or color correction?
[0:40:33.8] AM: It’s not automatically part of the process, but we are back to outputting our own contract proofs, you know? So, like everybody understands that you know, the way that our calibrated Epsons look in the light room under the light box that have the same lighting as the pressman, and not, you know, necessarily in natural lighting, even though that where you might buy a book, but you know, that’s what should be used.
[0:40:59.3] DC: Yeah. I mean, you are still in the middle of formalized print production inside of companies, which is incredible.
[0:41:07.5] AM: Yeah.
[0:41:08.1] DC: So, we mentioned before that, you know, a lot of times, designers, you know, they live on screens, and a couple of years ago, I had the great fortune of being able to attend Adobe MAX.
[0:41:20.5] AM: Oh, my favorite.
[0:41:21.7] DC: It’s amazing. I only went once, and if anybody wants to, me to go with them, just let me know. I’ll go with you, and the opening keynote was an hour and a half, and they did not mention print once, and I literally freaked out, and then I went to The Dieline Awards that they had there, and – oh, no, that was at the HOW Conference. At the HOW Conference, had the Dieline Awards, the Packaging Awards.
All the designers got up there, and nobody thanked the print producers, nobody thanked the printers. It was just like, you know, I get it, it’s a design contest, but still, all of those people, besides, the designers are actually the ones who brought that design to life because if they didn’t work with Amy, I guarantee you, that file is messed up, and there was a lot of people who got it to the point where it started winning awards.
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[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:42:45.1] DC: So, since design education rarely teaches the realities of print production, manifesting a file created on a screen to a printing press to a printed surface can be challenging, and there are more surfaces and more substrates than ever as we’ve been speaking about. So, speaking out there to the Printerverse, what’s missing from the design curriculum, and how can the printing industry be more proactive and supportive in growing print-competent designers?
[0:43:16.9] AM: Printers and people that are employing designers to design for print, it’s super important not just to look at a designer’s portfolio, right? Because yeah, like designers can be creative, but if you are going to be hiring somebody to design for you for print, right? And they have an amazing portfolio, you know, invest in upscaling that individual. You know, whether it’s courses on – you know, LinkedIn Learning has a few really good, like print production.
The Idealliance has a lot of really – I’ve done the prepress certification for the Idealliance and their color management certification courses for the Idealliance. So, there are ways to teach young people that, you know, have that creative, like that would look amazing, like on ink, on paper, but let’s help you to achieve, you know? So, you’re not just like, handing off a mess. So, it’s all about empowering.
You know, Fiery, like again, like has a lot of programs, like you know, setting up files for print, like all the things you need to know. You know, like so many people don’t even know, like you know, no one knows, you know? Like, when type is thick enough to use a rich black, you know, like, what sort of rich blacks, like you know, are good for web? What sort of rich blacks are good for offset?
You know, like there’s so many different things, like people copying and pasting logos from Illustrator into InDesign that are black, and you know, they’re not overprinting. There’s just like a lot of different – like people don’t even know what overprinting is, you know?
[0:44:49.7] NT: They don’t listen and learn, and some of them do. I had two books last week, the type grey, seraph type, oh, with 80% black. It’s no, we’re going to do that as a grey. For number one, we don’t want to be chasing, you know what I mean? You’re not going to do that. You don’t even understand the basics, right? If you do 80% of black for your type and it’s got, you know, thicks and thins and seraphs and all that, you’ve got dots.
It’s not sharp. Yeah, well, no kidding, but those are the kind of things that we get paid to catch them, and I get in early and go, “No, that’s not going to work, this is how we’re going to do it.” But when you just release, a lot of times it’s too late. Like you said, there’s schedules, right? And you’re up against it, and they’re basic things, and so there needs to be someone that teaches them, and I think that there’s not enough mentoring and teaching going on.
And I think it should be mandatory from both ends. I think it should be incumbent upon anybody who has a bunch of designers, and they’re designing for print, to get good people that they work with and partners, and encourage them to take them. You know, I take all my good clients to design teams and bring them through a shop. Even finishing it and show them, and you know how many of them go, “Oh, I didn’t know that.”
[0:45:59.8] AM: That’s so right.
[0:46:00.9] NT: I could – they become better designers, and not only that, and even if it’s not our shop or someone I know, they’re doing it the correct way, and on the other end, they have to do that. Printers need to encourage their clients. A lot of times, they get afraid of designers. I mean, I’m so old, now that’s not what I want to know.” I mean, the designers, “Oh, the printers are all creepy old men, you know?”
It’s like there’s this big void, but when they talk to each other, it’s amazing, right? Printers need to go out of their way to say, “You know what? Why don’t we talk about it? Job’s coming next month, you’ve designed this gorgeous thing, you’re telling me it’s six-color, and all of this, but before you get done with the files, let’s just talk about it, right? Because we’ll show you what we like,” and so forth, and that designer’s going to be better for it, right?
Instead, you get this adversarial thing where it comes in, “Well, you know your files are no good, that’s why I made a mistake.” It doesn’t have to be that way, right?
[0:46:53.1] DC: Designers don’t like to hear no, which is part of the problem. Amy?
[0:46:57.3] AM: Yeah, I totally agree. No, I totally agree, but I’m all for, you know, when I work with Candid, we did tours. We’re bringing a lot of the students from the GCSF. We’ve been mailing through the prep departments, through the finishing, through the stamping, they used to make, you know, they do all the die stamping there, you know, through the bindery. Like, people don’t understand, they’re like looking at templates, and like, “What is this extra,” you know, like, “Why is there so much, you know, like, head trim on this?” That’s where the bindery machine needs to grab the piece of paper as it’s going.
Like, people understand now, like once they can see all that stuff. So, like that’s one of the things that I totally encourage, like go read over, you know, if you have a printer that’s going to let you do a tour of their plant and like understand. Like, there’s nothing more, like you know, understanding, like you know you understand about impositions, and like just how things get stripped up on paper, and –
[0:47:53.8] NT: They know what’s going to happen, and when they see it, now they’re like, “Oh.”
[0:47:58.1] AM: Right, now you understand. I mean, that’s how I learned so much about this industry, by working in companies that had everything in it from bindery to die cutting to mailing to table cutting to packaging to –
[0:48:14.1] NT: To follow your curiosity, right? There’s too many silos, right? There’s design, there’s print, that’s not good to do things correctly, right? You’ve got to have, you’ve got to get people you trust and have conversations and lots of them.
[0:48:28.2] AM: Yeah.
[0:48:29.1] DC: What I try to do is encourage printers to host events for designers only, and you know, whether they bring a file over, or actually, I think it’s a better idea that everybody works on the same file. They show a poster, and they say, “This is what we’re going to make,” and it has different layers, and different – all the different technical things. I was not the technical person; I was the buying person.
So, I just got the phone call when my file wasn’t working, and then they told me they weren’t going to fix it, or whatever. So, but a million things can be wrong with those files, and then as they’re there, you teach them how, you know, you show them all the different equipment. You say, “Hey, if you want to do a die cut, you know, we have a die cutter, and this is, you know, here’s some shapes that you can make, or you could do a custom shape.”
And you know, like Noel says, give them the ingredients, but in this case, you’re giving them the ingredients, but you’re also having a cooking class at the same time. So, they get to make something, and if they can take it away with them and also it would be an interesting experiment too because, at the end, they could all compare all of the different printouts of the files, and they’ll be able to see, you know, anything that’s different in them, yeah?
[0:49:43.3] NT: I know some printers who have actually literally a sign in their building, “Print University,” like once a month, you can come with me, and they just talk, right? And they share what they know and what they do and what they know about files, and then they learn how to interface with, you know, with printers and all of the other different components there, and it just – yeah, I know we could talk about it all day. If you understand it, you understand it, but when you don’t, that’s when things go wrong.
[0:50:07.7] DC: Yes. We have a new guest on the podcast, Amy’s dog has joined us. That’s a very cute dog, I have to say.
[0:50:14.3] NT: Who is that?
[0:50:15.1] AM: This is Callie.
[0:50:16.3] DC: Hi Callie, very sweet, what kind of dog is it?
[0:50:19.1] AM: She’s a French bulldog, she’s from a rescue. Wait, I got one more. Come here, Queenie.
[0:50:23.8] NT: She’s beautiful.
[0:50:24.6] DC: Okay, the other dog is there too. So, Amy, hopefully you can hear me as you’re getting your other dog. Oh my God, hold on, that’s a big dog.
[0:50:32.8] NT: Whoa.
[0:50:33.8] DC: That’s a bulldog.
[0:50:34.7] AM: Yes, she’s a bulldog. It’s a girl.
[0:50:38.4] DC: Okay. This is the world’s worst podcast. We’re describing dogs that nobody can see. Okay, David, as I said, could not make it, but he did send in a question, and David is our philosophical arm of this podcast. He’s always thinking up there in the ether. So, his question is, I’m going to read it. He says, “My question to you is about failure and how it made you better at your craft.” So, can you discuss that?
[0:51:06.5] AM: Well, I have two stories where I learned to accept in this process. So, we’re you know, making mistakes, and learning from my mistakes, and that it was okay to make mistakes. So, there are two different situations. One time, when I was the print manager for Pictorial, and it was a weekend, and we were setting up – it was American Express, it was the client, and it was like print energy, and like there’s a different way where you can variable switch out, like the codes on the plates.
And like, you know, using the RIP, and there was no QC person on the weekend, and IQC the sheets from the press, and I was so concerned with the ghosting and all. Like, there was like ghosting and take off because of the spot colors on the sheets, and then –
[0:51:58.8] NT: And gas coasting, yeah.
[0:52:00.2] AM: Yeah, gas coasting, and the take off bars, and making sure that –
[0:52:04.0] NT: Well, that usually eliminates it, but –
[0:52:06.1] AM: Yeah, the print was good, that I didn’t notice that I had imposed the sheets with the, you know, the wrong code numbers on them. So, like it’s yeah, so that was about like a $50,000 mistake. So, that was like my first big one, and you know, I learned. I mean, it’s a mistake when it prints, right? In printing, but when it comes down to it, it didn’t get mailed, right? It didn’t get cut; it didn’t go through the bindery.
[0:52:40.8] NT: It could have been worse.
[0:52:41.4] AM: Yeah, and I learned from that, like the importance of QC, and then again, when I was working in large format one time, it was when I first started working there, and again, Noel, similar to like your situation, huge rush, a billboard for Times Square. We used to do, there’s like a section for Times Square that’s like four or five different billboards. It cascades around the whole thing, and I didn’t like, update the files, you know?
And for a moment, my ego was there, you know? And I didn’t want to admit that, like, it was my mistake, and so gently, the person that was in charge of that large format department at the time, his name was Dave Stephanic, he told me that it’s okay to make mistakes, and so like, in large format too, what really costs is not necessarily the material, but the installation. So, it didn’t get installed, and I learned that like, all these things were just a part of my journey.
I learned further, your ego doesn’t have to make you a hundred percent perfect, right? Like, I learned from those mistakes, and then I learned obviously. So, I always say again, people aren’t perfect, that’s why there’s erasers on pencils. That’s one of my mom’s favorite lines. Again, you know, it’s only a mistake when it gets printed, right? So, you know, we try to teach the design, and again, that’s why you have so much QC.
Like, I can’t tell you, my mantra is just preflight, preflight, preflight, you know, proof, you know, whether it’s soft proofing, contract proofing when you can package it, and then you can release it. You know, you preflight, you know, all the way down the line, you know? And everybody from the designer to the production person, to hopefully, the guy at the printing plant. So, as long as like there’s so many checks and balances in place, you just try to put as many checks and balances in place to try and prevent the ultimate. It’s only a mistake.
[0:54:51.6] DC: Disaster, stop the press.
[0:54:53.4] AM: It’s only a mistake when it prints, right, yeah, or when it gets mailed.
[0:54:57.3] DC: Or when it’s on the printing press, and you have to wake up the entire team at 3:00 in the morning.
[0:55:02.0] AM: Or you have to reinstall.
[0:55:03.5] DC: Yes, or you have to get a stonecutter to come back to the office and recut the stone that you just had in there.
[0:55:09.4] NT: Oh, yeah.
[0:55:09.8] DC: There is a spelling mistake on the freaking stone.
[0:55:12.6] AM: Yeah.
[0:55:13.4] DC: Noel, final words on our podcast with Amy? Amybeth.
[0:55:17.3] NT: I so enjoyed it. It’s nice to talk to somebody who – and what you’ve described, Amy, what you just described. If you’re not trying, then you’re not going to go forward, and then you’re trying, you’re going to fail when you’re learning, and when you’re not failing, you’re not learning. It’s not – you said something really important, you have to move on. It would be one thing if you said, “So what? Who cares?”
No, you took it to heart, and you learned, and like that supervisor said, “Let it go,” basically, right? We go forward. You’re not going to do that again, and it’s process, process, process, right? You can’t be rogue, you know, like an artist. It’s not, you know, what we do on both ends, what all of us do here. It’s not throwing paint at the wall and charging a million dollars for it.
[0:56:03.5] AM: I’m just thinking the same analogy.
[0:56:05.4] NT: It’s process, and failure is part of it, and learning is part of that. So, I love David’s question, but I just think it’s great. I just hope that people will understand that when you see something really special, it didn’t happen by accident. Somebody probably stayed up late; they might have argued, they looked at it from a different perspective, and I think that anybody can try to do those things and learn.
Unfortunately, there’s a lot of people around now, and not all young; there’s some great young people, but they’re just waiting for things. Like, one of my favorite people that ever lived was Leonardo da Vinci, right? And one of the things he said that really struck me is, “Don’t let things happen to you, go out and happen to things,” right? And that’s kind of what you’re talking about. You happen to things.
You talk to the designer, you go, “Wait a minute, I mean, I’m going to teach you about it. Let’s talk about how it’s going to be done, and where it’s going to be done.” And I just think as long as you’re doing that, and that goes hand in hand with mentoring, because our great industry, all ends of it, have to go forward, right? It’s not going to without us old – particularly, not old, I’m old, you’re not.
[0:57:13.5] AM: I’m old.
[0:57:14.7] NT: Not as old as me. But there’s nothing wrong with being specific and particular and following a process, right? It helps, and learning. I mean, you took all around you, right? From the print world to what you do now, and I don’t know, I just – that’s my last word. I know it’s all over the place, Deborah, but I love that because don’t, you know, sleep on learning and curiosity and talking to people that know more than you, and making mistakes. That’s how you get better.
[0:57:42.4] DC: Yeah.
[0:57:43.3] AM: That’s right.
[0:57:44.2] DC: So, Amy, before we wrap this up, I mentioned in the introduction that you are a speaker for CreativePro. I’m actually speaking for the first time at their conference next week.
[0:57:51.9] AM: I saw.
[0:57:53.0] DC: I’m so excited
[0:57:53.6] AM: I saw.
[0:57:53.9] DC: I’ve been stalking this organization forever. So, I just love that I am, hopefully, I’ve earned my spot to keep coming back. But tell everybody, you know, what you’re doing. You do so many events, and you do speak, and people can actually, you know, attend these things. So please.
[0:58:11.5] AM: Well, I do regularly appear on Andrew Kavanagh’s Create with Adobe Firefly, which you could find on YouTube, under Drew Kav, it’s like a weekly event, but I do it every couple of weeks with him where we just go live and like, we create with either Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Firefly. For the GCSF, we do host lots of events, and anybody is welcome to attend.
We do cater to the students that are enrolled in our program and students from the colleges that we do reach out to in the tristate area, but we do welcome you know, international students that want to come and just get their learning on. We often have guest speakers, so we’re just finishing up last season’s event. So, you can look on the graphic communications, the GCSFNY.org, and next year’s events will be updated soon.
I’m also speaking, like I said, for CreativePro, the InDesign Conference in December, and I’ll be speaking on how to set up files for embellishments for spot. Yeah, so how to set up finishing files for print. So, that’s like, super exciting, and I also did the Print Design Academy last year, I had a –
[0:59:29.9] DC: Me too.
[0:59:30.1] AM: Set up – yeah, I had a setup –
[0:59:31.3] DC: I love them.
[0:59:32.4] AM: With print. So, yeah, he’s great.
[0:59:34.2] DC: Yeah.
[0:59:35.2] AM: Yeah, me too.
[0:59:36.4] NT: I was actually asked to speak about a year and a half ago, and –
[0:59:38.6] AM: You should do it.
[0:59:39.2] NT: I had a conflict and I didn’t, and now, I’ve seen –
[0:59:41.5] AM: So, I’m hoping to go back this year, the Print Design Academy Summit.
[0:59:45.0] DC: Yeah, it’s amazing.
[0:59:45.6] AM: So, I’m hoping to go back this year. I did a workshop for them on how to set up bump plates.
[0:59:50.1] DC: Oh, that’s amazing.
[0:59:49.8] AM: And spot plates for finishing.
[0:59:52.6] DC: I get to speak to all the designers about that print is cool and they should, they should use it more.
[0:59:56.6] AM: Yeah, I’m going to tune in. So yeah, CreativePro is a great organization.
[1:00:01.5] DC: It is, it really is. Anything else, Amy, to share?
[1:00:04.9] AM: Nope, that’s basically it, just follow me on LinkedIn, I have my own website, LearnAdobe123.com. So, where I do consulting and you know, one-on-one Adobe education, and a lot of teaching for setting up files for print as well. So, you can go.
[1:00:20.9] DC: Oh.
[1:00:21.3] AM: Over there and check out my courses.
[1:00:23.4] DC: That is great to know. I get messages that are like, “We’re looking for somebody who can help us set up files.” So, that is great to know. Everything that we’ve spoken about on this podcast, including everything that Amy just mentioned, I will put in links in the show notes, so you can just click over and get more Amy, which you should have more Amy in your life, and shout out to David Drucker, we’re thinking of you.
[1:00:48.2] AM: Yeah, hope everything is well.
[1:00:50.3] DC: Thanks for sending in a thoughtful question. Noel, it is always great to see you. Feel better. Until next time, everybody, print long and prosper.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[1:01:01.2] DC: Thanks for listening to Podcasts From the Printerverse. Please subscribe, click some stars, and leave us a review. Connect with us through printmediacentr.com, we’d love to hear your feedback on our shows and topics that are of interest for future broadcasts. Until next time, thanks for joining us. Print long and prosper.
[END]
