(On camera it doesn't look so bad.. It's much darker in person.)
As the printers at university have ran out I had no choice but to print off at home… Luckily, the colours came out exactly how I wanted it to look like.
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| left: home print right: uni print |
I was about to start again when I noticed that my design that I had just printed off at home was quite large in comparison to my pages. I was beginning to run out of options because I didn’t have much cartridge paper left so for now I just roughly trimmed the edges so that it would match my inside pages. I wasn’t too worried about this as it would’ve been a lot worse if my cover were smaller.
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| home print (cropped) against a test print |
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| home print (cropped) verses none cropped version |
I tried to find alternatives to this by making my document 2mm smaller as that was how much larger it was than my inside pages, but it still didn’t work. It’s strange that it was larger because I printed from the exact same document as I had at university.
As I was worried about my lack of ink I quickly went over to Staples to do some prints there. Luckily the Staples print was a lot better than the ones I had done before as the gold in the front cover came out really well on the paper. In fact, all of the colours on each design came out exactly how I wanted yet as Staples had a smooth matte paper it was missing the texture that cartridge creates.
Out of curiosity I decided to measure my designs and noticed that my pages were 131mm in width, and my home and Staples print was 133mm, which was the correct dimension. For some strange reason it seems that the university printers had printed mine at a smaller scale to what it should be, as I printed off the exact same document both there and at home.
Reflective & Critical Thinking
In order to figure out what to do I have decided to look at all of my possibilities and write out appropriate solutions for them all.
If I use university printouts…
The university print outs were good, was done on a lovely textured cartridge paper, but I feel that because of this paper there were several white dots on my coloured designs. There are also some cracks on the edges where I have folded the paper as well, and none of these problems can be fixed by printing again as I’ve tried it out on numerous prototypes. The other problem with these university print outs is that they’re at a smaller dimension – however, in terms of the design brief, this will still be acceptable to submit as they fit within the brief.
The main problem with the printouts is the front cover, and there are two solutions: I either go with my front cover that I printed off at home on the same type of paper (despite it being slightly faded) OR I just use the version I printed at Staples. The Staples version is printed on a different paper stock (matte) but the colours came out exactly how I want it to be, and the illustration is a lot clearer. It being in a different paper stock isn’t a problem as it’ll only be on the front cover.
If I use the Staples print…
Well this is a lot easier to do as all of the pages are at the right dimensions and the colours are brilliant so I could easily just bind everything and have that as the final product. The only downside is that the paper wouldn’t contain the same texture as cartridge paper, but it does avoid the ink on the paper being smudged and covered with white dots where the pages fold.
Therefore, to summarise, my solutions are:
Just go with the printouts and use either the home print or Staples print version for the cover. Then I get to keep the lovely textured cartridge paper.
OR
Use the Staples print out – different paper stock, but the colours and dimensions are perfect.
Both options have their advantages and disadvantages but I feel that, despite me wanting to use cartridge paper, that the Staples print would be a lot better to submit because all of my designs have been printed perfectly and it has the right dimensions I was looking for. It will be a shame not to use cartridge paper but there are just so many little problems with it such as the white dots that makes me stay away.
If I do go with the Staples version it avoids me trimming the front cover and therefore the design will be exactly how it should be.
Learning Outcomes:
[1] Developed their awareness of the needs and requirements of professional practice, manifested in the ability to produce practical graphic design work of high technical quality.
[3] Developed written and oral skills of critical self-evaluation in relation to their design practice.
[6] Developed skills of critical thinking, analysis and evaluation.
[9] Developed their ability to work with complex material, analyse problems and identify appropriate solutions.
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