Any use of "strokes" or outlines should be for print only.

[d fleming]

Print designers have no clue how to design for our industry. End of story. They don't teach anything in secondary or post secondary except adobe products and consider their students to be ready to go with an adobe certification. I very rarely open adobe software. I have it, understand it, can and have taught it. Have very little use for it in the shop.

 

[Jburns]

Pure coincidence, I just got done printing a perfect exsample,
the picture is of a backlit, channel letter, pill sign, I was printing today.
If I had to do this signage with plot vinyl, it would have been a nightmare
to make the vector right, but I'm printing it, so it was perfect as is...
except for the spots in the close ups, that's 100% their fault.

Yep! If I happened to catch something like that- I would send back to customer and ask that the designer correct before print...or pay you to do it.

 

[Andy D]

It was just 3 open nodes, it took 2 minutes to fix...
Unfortunately I didn't catch it until I had already set up all my
color setting in Onyx and ripped it.

 

[shoresigns]

So why doesn't anybody do it?

Because 90% of the "graphic designers" in the world are hacks. In my experience, the number of graphic designers that can consistently send error-free files that are also well-designed (and don't make me want to hit them in the head with a textbook) is extremely low.

I love telling the client when we save them from a costly reprint because their designer screwed up. On the other hand it's not as fun telling the client that their designer screwed up and we caught the error after it was printed.

 

[SightLine]

I agree with a lot of what been said here. I despise nasty messy artwork. Why on Gods green earth is there eleventeen points on that straight line or does that circle have 9000 points???? Or some logo or something design with some junky low grade font with a stroke that of course when you zoom in it has a bunch of open nodes and crap like the example Andy showed.

What I find interesting - we do often deal with mega-corporates and design firms. Its seems more often that we actually get clean artwork from them. KO (Coca-Cola corporation) for example generally has very nice clean artwork (as well as a mind bogglingly incredibly large amount of artwork). There are also ones that I have sort of "trained" over the years. Excellent artists that always give us files that are just lovely to work with. Masks..... good lord. That gradient does NOT need to be a rectangle the size of the actual Illustrator canvas (227 inches or so) then clipped to that tiny 3 inch shape!! Why oh why can they not just apply their gradient directly to the shape?? You know - that odd mask you release then realize you cannot select anything anywhere.... its because the mask you just released is a shape larger than anything and the only way to get past it is to zoom way way out, deselect all, send it to the back, delete it, or undo (reapply the mask).

Also - here is a very amusing recent one and new oddity for us. Blocked out the text and name for privacy.... they had initially contacted us about redoing the graphics on a bus they have. Said something about unable to move it currently so they mocked up their new design on a photo of the bus as a very oblique angle. Looked fine regardless though and I've seen designs mocked up photos thousands of times before (often at odd angles but its just to show the design). So we come to an agreement on things and we ask about vector artwork. Sure thing, we have Illustrator and will send it right over! I'm thinking, wow that makes things easier.... then I get the file....

 

[visual800]

when I wire frame a simple copy of text a designer did, I am amazed at how many copies of the text they have. I agree they have no clue as to what we need but WTH! why do they sit there and just keep reproducing what they already have produced?

I usually drag the original copy over the flexi and fix it quickly (in most cases)

 

[T_K]

Somebody converted a font to outlines and didn't pay attention. Whoops!

 

[Marlene]

I can honestly say I've received a file from a designer that was good to go as is. I have to weld, make real outlines, get rid of tons of junk they hid and pretty much just use what they send as a template for what I need to make. I gave up long ago expecting anything but pile of junk and just charge to fix it

 

[WildWestDesigns]

I can honestly say I've received a file from a designer that was good to go as is. I have to weld, make real outlines, get rid of tons of junk they hid and pretty much just use what they send as a template for what I need to make. I gave up long ago expecting anything but pile of junk and just charge to fix it

I wish this was easy for me.

Rather or not a vector file (or other graphic file) is perfectly setup (my process for digitizing is the same regardless if it's a vector or raster file). It still may or may not work for in the embroidery process. In order for me to fix it, I may have to use a font (typically it's fonts that are the issue) that works great and produces a great stitch out at the desired size, but in most instances, it will change the overall look and feel of the brand. Some people think I don't know what I'm doing unfortunately, because the designer told them "as is only, accept nothing else" (or something along those lines). That's great, just need to make sure you know how to design for all of the traditional productions mediums that are going to be used.

So it's either give them crap, but it's exactly what they want and what they have or it's turn out a quality product that isn't exactly what was designed.

 

[boxerbay]

haha THIS is every freaking day.

A LOT of designers have no clue. Even fresh graduates from Art Institute dont have a clue. Sad AI takes money from these kids, puts them in debt, and they dont even know what outline view is in Illustrator.

You know what also gets me is when clients send you a PDF of their logo and when you open it in AI you find all kinds of junk outside the artboard. Like old versions of the logo etc etc.

 

[Chris...]

I've encountered another one I don't understand... Or like. We get artwork from a "design firm" to print occasionally, and it seems like every element of their vector files are created using clipping masks. Can't even edit a typo if we catch one, because most of the text is done via clipping masks with no possible logic behind it. File sizes are huge, ripping takes forever... Don't get why people go through so much work that's not necessary.

See that all of the time. I think colleges must be teaching that method.

 

[Chris...]

I worked in print for 28 years. We would always complain about the files because they obviously came from web page designers. Lo res images galore.

 

[Jackpine]

THIS is every day...... I just got done making a file cut ready from a customer that paid to have it made into a vector. Then she paid me. And now she can cut the vinyl.