I royally screwed up today. i wasted a bunch of my co-workerās and my time (he was helping me print a vinyl menu, in a specific font, on a 24x35" chalkboard). we cut 4 lines at a time, 20 lines total, and painstakingly picked out all the non-letter vinyl, and were just finishing up lines 17-20 when we realized we printed THE WRONG MENU! totally my badā¦ I sent the wrong pdf to the vinyl machine. thank goodness we caught it before tomorrowās event.
soā¦in an effort to make me feel not so absolutely, horribly rottenā¦ what were some of the major mess-ups youāve made in you design career? please donāt say Iām the only one!
Examples of my more memorable screwups; these all got to print ā¦
I misspelled the word āProfessionalā
I misspelled the clientās company name on artwork for an invoice
I did a calendar with Easter in November
I did an imposition for a 120 page catalogue where 2 pages got switched around - not my fault, but I didnāt spot it on the proofs
Sending the wrong version off to the printers has happened to most of us I suspect.
The examples of other things going wrong can be entertaining too; I did artwork for a large etched glass screen which took ages to get right - eventually it was done but it was dropped in the street by the delivery drivers.
Another time I sent a tube with a rolled up proof to an address in London but got the post code wrong - it was flagged by an automatic system and because it looked like a pipe bomb it was sent for ādisposalā by the Army. Boom.
As far as royal screw ups go, this doesnāt seem that bad. Yes, it cost you and a coworker a bunch of time ā which sucks ā but the error was caught before anything was delivered to the client. That calls for a celebratory drink in my book!
I remembered another one - I sent a numbered invoice set with numbers from 10001-10500 instead of 100001-100500. Ten books triplicate NCR, perfed and bound. A lot of hand finishing as well as the printing had to be done again.
I had Santa Clause on the OFC of a national magazine. It was ages ago and I still cannot live that down. Well, what doesnāt kill me makes me stronger, one hopes.
thanks all! i do feel a little better today. some of my co-workers chimed in with a few of their own major mess ups.
and i also remembered last night that my x-husband worked for a world-class telescope, and one of his co-workers dropped a 22" mirror (not a regular mirrorā¦a mirror for the telescope) while transporting it from hawaii to oahu. $5000 mistake!
I only have to hear the LifeFlight helicoptor coming in for a landing at the local hospital to realize other people are having worse days than I am. Everything in perspective.
well, i work with in-house clients that work in africa, bringing clean water to villages, so single moms donāt have to spend the majority of their day looking for food and waterā¦so, yea, gotta remember that perspective.
I typed āeditionā wrong on the spine of a die stamped book that made it to print (thankfully caught before binding!) I also spelled Bristol Myers Squibb ā āMeyerā like Oscar Meyer which also didnāt get caught until the book cover printed. Ultimately, the editor should have caught the typos, but I felt responsible because I was the one who did the typing. (This was early on before editors emailing copy was standard practice. Now I strictly cut and paste, no typing if I can help it.)
from my g.d. peeps today! 
totally my badā¦ I sent the wrong pdf to the vinyl machine. thank goodness we caught it before tomorrowās event.
