Paper or Plastic

There are many reasons for why you would want to have a project printed versus keeping it electronic. However, you’ll probably want to have a digital version to distribute as well. Often companies will have this displayed on their website to download or email it to clients and customers. With the iPad being one of the top selling Apple products, it’s more obvious than ever, companies need to offer a digital version of their reports, catalogs and brochures as there are many people who prefer a digital version than a printed one.

Although you may have to pay an extra cost to have the digital version made, you’ll save considerably on having fewer copies printed and cut back on the waste of creating so many print materials. The catch is that people could be viewing this file on a screen as small as an iPhone or as large as a 28″ iMAC monitor. There are a few things to do and consider when making your file so it can work on any device.

1 – Save your file as a PDF in RGB. RGB stands for Red Green Blue. This color combination is used when viewing a document on a screen. To do this, I am assuming the file was made in InDesign which is the most commonly used layout design program. When in InDesign, go to “print”. In the setting box that appears click save as postscript file. Then open Adobe Distiller and create a setting that is RGB. Carry your postscript file over to the Distiller window. If you’re unfamiliar with this process, a more detailed tutorial can be found on Adobe’s website.

2 – Make sure your file is under 10MB. Since people will be downloading this from the web, you want to make sure the file is not too big or it will take too long to download. You can control your file size by adjusting the settings in Adobe Distiller. Image quality can be changed from “maximum” to “high” and image resolution can be changed to between 150-250. Ideally you want your file to be as small as possible without losing so much image quality that it looks blurry on a 17″ computer monitor.

3 – Check your file on a large screen and on a phone for image quality and to make sure your colors appear correctly.

Last week the Philadelphia Archdiocese announced that they were closing a number of their schools, including most of their high schools. One of the schools on the list is the high school I went to. I found out, thanks to a friend I went to high school with, that a group of alumnae are looking to stop the school from closing with an appeal process. In order to start this process, they held a rally and put out an APB asking for help from lawyers, accountants and graphic designers.

My first reaction was, “A graphic designer at the top of list of people they need help from?” Lawyer and accountant I get, but when you’re trying to save a school, you’re going to fight back with a cute logo and website? Of course it is! The reason why is because this project will depend greatly on how much support (aka donations) the organization will get from the community and the best way to collect support, update supporters on the status of the appeal, tell their story and share upcoming events, is with a website.

It’s interesting to see design help be at the top of the list of  things you need when starting an organized group, but also refreshing. I’ve found that since social media has become so popular, people are understanding the immense value of being searchable and communicating with people via the web.