Microsoft vs the rest??

[erichmond]

I'm currently having a debate with a client about the best ways of approaching a design project.

Basically and without going into detail, he doesn't want to pay much money and would like a template so he can produce multiple documents from one template supplied by the agency, us!

He's argument is that he can use Publisher! Which is fine if he would like to design his own templates, bare in mind that he has no design experience and no training in design, typographic etc.

My problem is that 'The Graphics Industry' uses more specialist software like Indesign, Illustrator or Quark etc.

I, personally, have no experience of using Publisher and no desire too. It's not financially viable for me to try and produce a template in a package I no nothing about.

My feeling is that the amount of his time wasted to do it him self would be best used to pay the agency to do them a lot quicker and slicker.

Anybody have a veiw on this?

[resdog]

You can only do so much with Microsoft "Punisher."

I had a customer who wanted to do this same thing, but then I sat her down and just explained the limitations that Publisher has, and why the graphics industry uses Adobe products instead. I told her, "Yes, I can design you a template in Publisher, but you have to understand that this will not look as good as if I designed it in our graphics program." Then I did her a mockup of two designs, one using bells and whistles of Illustrator and one in Publisher (Truthfully, I didn't spen a whole lot of time on the publisher one). After seeing the difference, she agreed that the Illustrator one was of better quality and opted to do that instead of publisher templates.

If, after you do this, they still want you to design in Publisher, I would say that you add a significant fee to do this (after all, this isn't the norm project; it won't be a repeat design; not done in the standard way). Say that you normally charge $75/hour for design, I would charge $100/hour for the publisher template design.

I personally always steer clear of publisher files and design. If this client is important to you and your company, then it pretty much stands to reason that you want to make them happy, and if they want a publisher file, then give them a publisher file. Me, it's too much of a hassle to deal with designing in publisher, so I am more apt to let that client go to the local "Kinko's" and bother their designer with "punisher" files than deal with the hassles. Unless it is one of my bigger clients, in which case I will grit my teeth and get it over with as soon as possible. At the same time I would educate them on the bonuses of using a design program.

[PrintDriver]

You might want to ask the print guys around here how they feel about printing from Publisher...
LOL!

[erichmond]

Yeah! Our views are on par, I'll fight my corner until he gives in I guess, besides I'm using a Mac anyway.... Can you get Publisher for a Mac?

[erichmond]

You might want to ask the print guys around here how they feel about printing from Publisher...
LOL!

One of his resons for using Publisher was the ability to export .pdf

It should be pretty flexible unless all the core files where needed, which is irrelevant anyway, because I dont want to do the job :confused:

[erichmond]

one of my mates down at the local pre press parlor has already told me where to go and to take my client with me too :)

[PrintDriver]

Uh huh. :D

[morea]

lol! That's the reaction Publisher evokes in most printers. :D

[The_Black_Knight]

Yeah! Our views are on par, I'll fight my corner until he gives in I guess, besides I'm using a Mac anyway.... Can you get Publisher for a Mac?No, you can't, thank the Design Gods...

[orkaknos12]

You could also tell the client that any program that can _print_ can export to Pdf files.. They may as well use Word and excel if they think publisher makes a good template system.. stingy business people with comfort zones for weird tools are annoying to deal with sometimes.

-Jon

[erichmond]

...especially when they want to project a professional image! I see so much crap produced out there that has obviously been produced in someones back bedroom.

it goes without saying of course! that excluding the good stuff produced by the truely talented ones in there back bedroom. bless you all

[rickself]

You could also tell the client that any program that can _print_ can export to Pdf files.. They may as well use Word and excel if they think publisher makes a good template system.. stingy business people with comfort zones for weird tools are annoying to deal with sometimes.

-JonAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!:eek:

[rickself]

Truth be told, and this hurts to say this, but I'd rather deal with a Publisher file than a Quark 6.5 file anyday. Generally, the person creating the Publisher file knows what they're creating isn't top notch, where the Quark designer thinks his project is the best damn project since twist tops on beer bottles!

[Rocketpig]

Publisher is absolutely horrific when creating separations for press.

I'll leave it at that. I could go on for hours about that pile of ****.

[PrintDriver]

Wait'll Quark 7 Rick...
<Chimes of Death>
:D

[rickself]

Publisher is absolutely horrific when creating separations for press.

I'll leave it at that. I could go on for hours about that pile of ****.
Actually, if you set the commercial printer settings to CMYK, convert the myriad of rgb spot colors to cmyk (rgb tints can produce bad results) and print the file as postscript and distill it, you can generally get good results. I output maybe 5 jobs a month from Publisher, that's more than Quark! Quark still has not learned to play well with othes. And what was added in Quark 6.x that is design specific to leave 5.0 behind and upgrade? Don't tell me OSX compatibality. There is no such thing! :confused:

Wait'll Quark 7 Rick...
<Chimes of Death>WOW, remember the chimes of death? You could hear those across the office!
I know...a certain local design company has to be on the leading edge and grabs up every upgrade as soon as it comes out. If history repeats itself, they trash their old apps as soon as the new ones come out! These guys are a floppy short of a complete install! :rolleyes:

[PrintDriver]

It wasn't so much the chimes of death you heard as it was the scream, sob, or groan that accompanied it. LOL!
I'll stop waylaying the thread now.
;)

[rickself]

It wasn't so much the chimes of death you heard as it was the scream, sob, or groan that accompanied it. LOL!
I'll stop waylaying the thread now.
;)
ROFLMAO...that was the sound!!
Betcha those under 25 or 30 don't even know what the chimes of death are. It'll make a grown man squirm!

[morea]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1f/Sad_mac.png

[rickself]

Sheeeeesh...that's the screen...makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up! How 6 musical notes could do just that!
And you notice that the last letter in the first row is an "F"..not the FIRST LETTER LIKE IT SHOULD BE!!

[orkaknos12]

it's the alphabetical character F followed buy 3 asterisks.

-Jon

[morea]

that sounds about right. LOL

[cjoe]

The good old Publisher vs Quark/Indesign debate. I have so far managed to steer clear of these debates, but i just want to mention that as long as the concept is solid and you can produce the basic minimum requirements for publication or whatever, then it really doesn't matter if you create it in MSPaint or Quark 6.5 or Corel WordPerfect. I guess that the saying "its the journey not the destination that matters" doesn't really relate to design, at least in a technical sense.

[erichmond]

I agree it probably doesn't matter however, I feel that the client shouldn't even consider using Publisher and should hand over the intire job to the Design Agency to produce a solid concept, after all the client usally knows nothing about design and is probably unable to come up with a solid concept.

[PrintDriver]

It does matter if you can't get it printed easily Cjoe.
Publisher is not a large format tool.
That's why I dread Xara and Acrylic files too. They aren't in our workflow.

VVVVVVVVVVVVV see note below VVVVVVVVVVVVVV

[Patrick Shannon]

At my old job, we weren't able to do something with a customer's Publisher file (can't remember what we were exactly trying to accomplish). My old boss decided to take the file to other print shops to see if they could get it printed. It felt ever so good to be right once again when he came back stating "No one would touch this file with a ten foot pole!" or something to that effect.

PrintDriver is right on the money, designing something (for print) is no good if it can't be accurately printed.