I made some more seasonal cards this year to send out to family and friends. I did the same last year (I’ll have to dig them out and post them up) but they seemed a little too abstract for the majority of my family, so this year I took a photo of part of a piece I made which I wasn’t too happy with overall save this piece and another (awaiting post of this..), and decided to use it for my card as it summed up well the heavy skys and dull and depressing days of late.
It seemed a much better idea than it turned out to be due to printing. I had no trouble with the design, photography and layout, but the favourite printer of me and Jay and Gaz (InPrint) seems to have taken a turn for the worse. The guy in there was new and was blankly staring at two pieces of paper when we went in. He carried on for a minute, then put them down as though again, he had been defeated by some cunning trick. “One day it’ll make sense..” he looked as though he was thinking. He seemed perplexed that we wanted something printing, and when a USB memory stick was produced he looked lost. He simply told us we were better going to Copy Zone in the University of Bradford, also owned by InPrint as they were “backed up for days”. No wonder with a moron like him running things.
So we went to the place in the uni, gave them the files, sorted. Time for a pint and a game of pool in Delius then back to collect.
Wrong.
Got a call from them saying they were having problems with my files. I go back, and they have one of my A3 files set right, and one is for some reason about 20% of an A3 page. Now I know I’ve set everything right. So they play about and I say “just stretch it to fit, it’ll be fine” thinking they probably resized it. I’m now having doubts about their understanding of printing. But back to the pub I go. After a couple of pints and a legendary shot in which I potted a ball with a jump it’s back to the printers. Jay’s one sided stuff is fine, but mine, printed back to back for some reason doesn’t line up. Margins are fine, seems one side is printed to the right size, and the other too small. There is no explanation for this other than my files are a little out (which they are not) or that they have printed it wrong. After what seems like an age trying to get the two women there to understand what the problems is, one leaves and the other starts looking through all the menus on her screen for the illusive “solve all your problems” pane. I point out what might be the problem, and she explains that it’s because they print on SRA3 as opposed to A3. From what I understand this is so guides can be printed for cutting, so why my file wasn’t printed at A3 then cropped I don’t know. Time go’s by, the woman starts acting like a little child whose made a mistake and refuses to listen to my comments. An hour and twice the amount of paper needed used, I’m still waiting and the woman is fuming. She actually starting printing out things, measuring the offset and the altering the margins in the file. It didn’t work (obviously because the margins are fine and my two identically sized files are sized differently in their application) and I say to her look; my files are fine, just start again, set each file to fit the page and print.
Guess what? It worked. Only problem was that in my haste to get out of there, I forgot about the SRA3 / A3 different, and ended up with the finals a little too big. A quick trim and it was just about sorted (the front and back of the cards don’t quite line up which is a shame), but at the end of the day if you are a printer and someone brings you an A3 file, you print it at that size. If you print on SRA3 that means you need to trim it. And if you don’t know that, you shouldn’t be a printer. I of course pointed out that we’d have all saved paper, time and effort if she could do her job properly. She just went and sulked in the corner like the 40-odd little girl she obviously is.
Don’t go there, find a knowledgeable printer if there are still any.
Posted up a few places are these photos of some furniture apparently made by Ned Troide (one time video game high score celebrity. In 1982 playing Defender he scored 72999975 with just one quarter, a feat which took him 62 1/2 hours), but in fact apparently built by artist Paul Davies as part of an installation piece to “match his [Troide's] lifestyle” according to http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/visualart/213458_visual25.html). The score is insane in itself, but as it has since been surpassed and this is only one game in millions, the obscurity of it all adds an extra intrigue to the furniture. Plus they look awesome, and fit perfectly in between form and function. There is apparently a marijuana smoking table too, but I can’t find any pictures. There is also some confusion over whether Troide ever built or used them or if they were built purely for show (I can’t get to the bottom of it anyway) but hopefully someone will take the hint and make some reproductions.
