Pantone vs. Matchprint Nightmare!

[DonnaL]

I have these clients that are working on their cover for the cities budget analysis and financial report.
She comes in with a business card with this god awful logo - from another company! I want this logo with these colors.. she looks through the swatch book and picks 2 colors. One for the cover background and one for the logo (with shades of that pantone color mixed in) I say ok.

I create the logo in Illustrator, using the pantone colors and print out a match proof. Of course the match proof prints out in CMYK so the colors are not going to be PRECISE.

She comes in and decides she likes the CMYK color and goes through the swatch book to try and match it, giving me yet two new different pantone colors. Now I'm ready to scream! She comes in again and says 'this isn't the color I picked'... WELL NO CHIT SHERLOCK! We told you it was a CMYK print and not the actual single color. She says.. 'How can I be sure I'll get that color?'
We said... you're more than welcome to stand by the press and watch the machine spit out your FINAL print!

Evey year we go through this with the colors. Every year she bad mouths our company to city hall, yet every year she comes back!!!

So tell me, IS the customer always right?

NOT! /emoticons/bootyshake.gif

Some drink from the fountain of knowledge while other's just gargle with it.

[ylaenna]

Aww man, sorry Dee, I feel your pain. It's hard explaining a concept to someone who doesn't have any hands-on experience in that field. I kept proposing they install a punching bag in the break room, but they never took me seriously.

THINGS GO WELL AH MAHT BE SHOWIN HER MAH OH FACE...

[DonnaL]

I just tell someone...'I'm going outside to pitch a fit if anyone's looking for me'.
It's just so annoying that customers think they're right all the time. Why can't they take our word for it? After all this is OUR field of expertise and NOT theirs. But half of them just can't get it thru their thick skulls.
I wish there was a polite way to say that to them.

Some drink from the fountain of knowledge while other's just gargle with it.

[PrintDriver]

Wellll... you coulda just made a reprint of the first file and not told em...
Can't decide if that's 'dishonest' but it woulda been exactly what they wanted and only you and your printer would know.
I generally only show a print proof to a client that I know will fly (or at least I hope it will). They don't need to know what we do to the file.
;)

PrintDriver is a large format digital print dude. His advice/opinions may not apply to the 4color/offset/web world of printing

[DonnaL]

Not an easy thing with our company, just about every job that requires the large press will usually get a high res match print. If it were my decision, they get a laser color copy but when you have an employee there that 'asks' them if they want one, there's no turning back!
This particular employee is STUBBORN as all hell and has NO CLUE what we go through in prepress. No matter what we tell her it's.... 'do a match print, do a match print'. It's a freakin waste of hi-res paper. She's also one of those people that thinks the job will be done in a snap.
And she's over you shoulder... 'is it done yet? is it done yet?' I say, if you think youcan do it any faster, be my guest!

We have a new direct to plate system 'Brisque & Preps' with a workflow. It's still fairly new to us in prepress, and even with a bit of training we're still trying to learn how to impose jobs on it. Occassionally we'll get one of those jobs that just doesn't lay out right and here comes that co-worker, why isn't this done yet. 'We're working on it.'
'Well it shoulda been done by now'
'We're WORKING on it! It's not that simple.'
'There's gotta be someone here who knows how to do this?' Like OMFG! She down-right KNOWS it's a brand new workflow!!! Like anyone else is gonna know how to run this other than us. THAT's how she is!
So trying to convince her not to give out matchprints would be like trying to convince a dentist to perform a root canal on someone with dentures!

Some drink from the fountain of knowledge while other's just gargle with it.

[ylaenna]

Doesn't she have anything better to do than bother people who are trying to work? Is she just trying to look busy herself? She must either a) be in charge or b) suck the one in charge. O:)

THINGS GO WELL AH MAHT BE SHOWIN HER MAH OH FACE...

[PrintDriver]

LOL @ylaenna

Dee, sorry. Didn't realize it was in-house. What a louse.

PrintDriver is a large format digital print dude. His advice/opinions may not apply to the 4color/offset/web world of printing