Summary
You and your team have spent hours reviewing an artwork file.
Everything feels just fine, and you send it ahead for final printing and delivery.
And then the worst happens. ?
Your customer doesn’t like the final print or finds some minute error.
Errors in the artwork approval process are common and can happen at any stage of the artwork workflow.
An artwork proofing tool will help overcome potential challenges and improve efficiency. This post covers everything you need to know about the artwork proofing tool.
Signs You Need an Artwork Proofing Tool
If you are still wondering whether you need to have an automated process of artwork proofing, here are a few things to consider:
A. You and Your Employees Are Caught Up in a Loop of Revisions
The process of artwork management is a lot complex.
Once you receive an order, whether it’s a t-shirt or a business card, it passes through multiple stages before it goes off to printing.
And all these processes are interdependent on multiple departments that are responsible for technical, design-related, or other approvals. ?
For example, take the business card design process.
First, the customer specifies their material preferences, colors, and logo.
You then pass on this information to your designers, who create a customized design.
The design is carefully proofread for accuracy and consistency.
Once the print design gets approved within internal departments, it is forwarded to the end customer.
After a constant back and forth and hundreds of emails and spreadsheets later, the file eventually goes to the press.
This manual way of proofing is both time-consuming and prone to errors.
Chances are some person might unintentionally skip important details like spelling of a brand name, alignment of a logo, etc.
One error and your customer, brand value, everything is at stake.
One solution to this problem is giving your customers the power to design their products using a Product Designer Tool. ?
They can customize your product offerings to add text, upload images, change colors, add ready artwork, and a lot more.
Click to know more details about how a Product Designer Tool can help end-customers design stunning products, and you can automate the proofing cycle.
B. Miscommunication Between The Teams and Customers Make Matters Worse
If you feel that there is a lack of clarity and clear communication between people responsible for artwork management, it is a sign that you need a reliable artwork management tool.
For any industry collaboration and communication between teams and customers is important to be successful and the printing business is no exception. ❌?
As mentioned before, the process of artwork management involves several people which makes things challenging.
It is important for all of them to be on the same page.
Failing to do so leads to confusion and a lack of clarity.
Even if you ensure that everything is on the right track, things can get out of control due to lack of collaboration between teams.
Moreover, when you use conventional methods of communication like an email, chat, call, etc. it becomes difficult to retrieve something or recheck.
This creates a gap in communication which ultimately leads to a delayed proofing process.
And the more the process of artwork approval takes time, the more delays happen in order fulfillment.
That is why having a streamlined process of artwork management will not just reduce errors but also speed up the pre-press process.
PrintXpand is a one-stop destination for all your needs. Take a personalized demo of our product to understand it in detail.
How to Make The Process of Artwork Management Error Free and Efficient
Here’s how you can stay on top of artwork management using a Product Design Tool:
A. Notify End-customers in Real-time About Image Resolution
Images might look pretty on the screen. But sometimes they appear blurry on a printed surface. This happens because of low-resolution images.
When images having 72 dpi are printed at 300 dpi, they tend to look blurry. For instance the below image.
Your customers are least interested in knowing these numbers. What matters to them is to get a high-resolution image.
And that’s why having a Designer Tool comes in handy. It is helpful in giving a clear idea to a customer about how their end-product will look.
Suppose a customer uploads a custom image. But it is of a low resolution. So, how will they know about it?
Using the tool, you can configure the minimum and maximum sizes for a custom image upload. Further, you can enter resolution warning messages in the backend of the tool.
Once enabled, a pop-up, like the one in the above image, will be reflected every time a user uploads a low-quality image. This kind of real-time update speeds up the proofing process.
B. Avoid Trimmed Off Edges Using Bleed Cut Safety Lines
Bleed cut safety margins are extremely important for certain products like business cards, posters, invitations, etc.
As someone who deals with print products you very well know these margins. But how will you inform your end-user about the safety lines?
A Product Designer Tool comes with a Bleed Cut Safety Line Manager. It gives a clear view to the end-user about the bleed or cut lines, and that they have to play around with customization only up to a limited area.
Safe lines will look something like this on the front end. This will give users a heads-up if they risk having a text or image trimmed off.
Store owners can enable and configure these lines as per their requirements from the admin panel. They can modify the name of the lines, their color, add a warning message, etc.
C. Use Ruler Grid Line to Deliver Accurate Customization
Ruler and grid line helps users align and position different objects when customizing a product.
The ruler will offer them a point of reference to design a product and the grid line gives a reference to arrange different objects on a product.
Here’s how users can view the lines and align objects like text, clipart, etc. as per their requirement. This eases the process of customization and gives them a clear idea of the position of different objects.
D. Set Custom Pricing for Each Customization and Display in Real-time
Different customers have different requirements. Some might only want to add a tagline while others would like a custom image along with a tagline. Store owners have the control to charge users based on the customization features they use.
The tool comes with a dynamic and live pricing system. Dynamic pricing enables you to decide the price for every customization attribute.
You can charge for clipart, text, color, quotes, etc. You can configure these dynamic prices on a particular product as well as for the entire store.
Further live pricing generation gives customers a complete bifurcation of customization price in real-time.
Take your business a step ahead with the power of a Designer Tool. Share with us your business requirements, and we will conduct a demo!
E. Preview All Variations at Once
Let’s say you run a printing business that specializes in ID cards. Imagine a customer comes to you with a request for 200 ID cards, each with different names and employee information.
With our Designer Tool, you can easily handle mass customization.
The customer can upload a CSV file with a list of names and details about their employees.
Using this information, the tool quickly generates previews of all the ID cards at once.
This saves time and effort, as the customer can review and approve all the designs in one go.
They can ensure that the names are correct and that the layout is to their satisfaction without any manual intervention.
This can help you efficiently manage multiple variations and deliver mass customized products hassle free.
How to Handle Artwork Proofing Cycle
Here’s how you can manage the entire proofing cycle.
- Once your customer designs their product using the Designer Tool, you can generate print-ready files including vector, non-vector, and PDF files. These are editable files that you can share a link with your customers via email for either modification or approval.
- The link that your customers get will look something like the below image. If they find the design file to be perfect, they can directly approve the status. In case, they want to make changes, the modify button will directly take them to the frontend of the Designer Tool.
- Additionally, the Artwork Approval Limit feature enables you to define limits for the approval process. You can decide how many times the end-user can make changes in the design.
- Once your customer approves the design file, the rest of the operations including printing and fulfillment follows.
Artwork proofing is one of the many features of PrintXpand, an add-on of the Product Designer Tool. Print-expand is an ERP for the printing industry that lets you manage end-to-end business operations.
It helps you optimize processes including artwork proofing, print job management, order management, inventory management, and a lot more.
Work with the Experts
Errors, miscommunication, and roadblocks in the process of artwork proofing lead to reduced print quality and customer dissatisfaction.
For improved efficiency and business growth, investing in the right solutions is important.
PrintXpand is a one-stop destination for all your needs.
For more than 14 years, we have been helping businesses in the eCommerce and printing industry build and grow their business with our cutting-edge web-to-print solutions and services.
Our flagship product – Product Designer Tool is all you need to enable product customization on your store.
Once integrated, your customers can apply their imagination and create dynamic products for themselves.
The tool offers the right balance between advanced features and ease of use to enable quick customization.
PrintXpand is the perfect ERP that you need for all your needs for automating not just the artwork approval process but end-to-end business processes.
With features like print job management, order management, inventory manager, etc., it increases efficiency and helps boost productivity.
Whatever your requirement is, we are here to assist you to achieve all your business goals. Just drop us a message and we will get back to you!
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