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What do you do?
- This topic has 35 replies, 31 voices, and was last updated 15 years, 5 months ago by
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I'm just curious what fields of publishing folks here are in. Magazine, newspaper, book, etc. I'm in book publishing and use InDesign 95 percent of the time (we still have some Quark designers out there where I am forced to use Quark the other 5 percent
).My job entails getting the designer's design file and fixing them to use (or getting the info I need and re-creating from scratch depending on how useful the file is). I write the style sheets, create the master pages and template, and do first-pass pages. That also entails placing art, creating tables, etc. I also have to mark up the manuscript for keyboarding. I do use xTags quite extensively, as an aside.
So what do you all do?
Dwayne
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Well, I:
- Give consultancy and support services to designers, newspapers, magazines, advertising agencies, etc. on ID, IC, Ai and Ac issues
- Do some layout work on manuals and catalogs (mostly for the cellular market)
- Do some of the more complex indexing, TOC, and pre-output work for layout projects
- Design layout templates for ID and overall layout production workflows that are mostly Adobe CS based
- Develop scripts (free and commercial) for ID, IC, Ai and Ps (just started working on my first plug-in)
- Pass beginner and advanced level courses and hands-on-training sessions for ID, IC, Ai and Ac
- Run lectures and seminars on the advanced use of ID and Ac
- Manage the local InDesign forum
- Write books, articles, tutorials, tips and tricks about InDesign
Turns out I'm doing a lot of things…
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I work for a major HVAC manufacturer (technical publications/engineering documentation, etc. – lots of tables). My area of the department has been using ID exclusively for about 8-9 months now. I am working hard to get the other areas of this department (with a different manager) to make a leap of faith and come over to the ID side. We love it!
Unfortunately they are still using Quicksilver/Interleaf (horrors!). Some people just don't like change.
I seem to learn something every day that gets me more and more excited about ID! This forum will be a great place to learn even more!
Thanks!
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Hello!
Thinking of things that we do (the topic of this thread, and especially since Hank earlier mentioned being a screen printer), I'm wondering how many of us have actually operated a printing press, since for some of us, that what the final output will be. Not that everyone has to run a press (especially if one is designing for the web!!), and there are of course, a lot of great designers who never ran a press. Running a press can be so frustrating !! Really really frustrating. If you want to “meet the press”, prepare to be frustrated.
I've done pretty much the whole cycle, from inputting in the keyboard, doing the design in InDesign, making the plate, and running it on an offset press (an old Multilith 1250W). That includes all the nastiness such as cleaning the press (remember that offset ink is like very stiff grease), getting the paper in the water fountain (and all the headache of cleanup after that), paper in the ink rollers, paper stuck on the rubber blanket, paper which misses the grippers, registration headaches, wrecking the plate in the middle of the run, cleaning the press yet again, etc. etc. If we think we get misfeeds on a laser printer or ink jet, that's nothing. An offset press has a thousand more ways to misfeed paper, and at a much higher speed too.
There are a lot of tricks that press operators could do, if they really wanted to, like putting two spot colors on each side of the ink tray to print two different colors in one pass (one half of the page is one color, and the half of the page is the other color), but I don't think I could convince my current print supplier to do that…..
Once we didn't have any powder for the coated stock, so out of desperation, I put baby powder in the powder sprayer. The “pressroom” started smelling more like a nursury…. !!
For a while, when someone on InDesignSecrets wrote “Talk to your print provider” on the blog, it was a bit amusing, since on the other side of the wall (behind the computer with InDesign) was the press….But in some ways, I'm glad I'm not my own print provider now. Takes away a lot of frustration.
Ooops! I think I'm getting off topic.
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I work for a small (less than 10 employees, total) publisher of board, card, and roleplaying games. I design books, do grunt production on others, hire freelancers, train freelancers (apparently long document production is much more of a black art to some people than I ever expected …), build ads and convention display stuff, and do some web design.
Most of my time is spent in CS4, now, with trips back to CS3 for legacy projects and touchups on stuff that freelancers with CS3 have.
I work with elves-with-guns and giant robots and other fantastical stuff everyday, and it's awesome.
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ll1324 said:
I've done pretty much the whole cycle, from inputting in the keyboard, doing the design in InDesign, making the plate, and running it on an offset press (an old Multilith 1250W).
My first press was a Multilith 1250, back in 1968 or so. I'm quite happy to report that it was also my last, because it was persnickety enough and infuriating enough to put anyone off printing for life. Earlier than that, I'd made negs (and spotted them) and plates as a summer job when I was in High School. Then I took a l-o-o-ong sojourn away from graphics in general, and only returned, really, when DTP had relegated rubber cement and process cameras to the back shed.
Now (getting swiftly back on topic) I produce everything from interactive Flash displays to websites, and booklets to billboards, and act as technical adviser and art director for various collaborators. In the last decade I've logged maybe a couple thousand hours of education (many of them right here at ID Secrets) that I now pass on as much as I can.
I'm also a serial beta tester, a geeky pursuit that combines detective work, computer skill and the feeling that one might just make somebody's world a slightly better place.
I love the freelance, second career thing. Pursuing an avocation that satisfies my inner geek as well as my creative side — well, it can't be beaten.
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I work mostly on booklets, flyers, posters. Besides that I'm creating some interactivity for the web (magazines/banners in Flash; loving the export from ID to FL). I'm constantly trying to improve and speeding up my designing skills, think of things like GREP and such.
Furthermore I also do the conceptual design, as well some text writing. I do all this for less then 2 years.
Quite versatile, I think. It keeps work interesting!
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Hi
I work as graphic designer and softwaretrainer (CS design standard – print design, creative work, retouching) in Austria. Additionally I work as promotor for wacom, gridiron software, corel and some others.
In the next time I hope to get more jobs in the field of retouching and layout design.
I started with the CS2 (three years ago) and get some rockets under my feet or so
— now I teach ID, Ps and Ai on ACE level at the wifi (www.wifi.at) in Linz.
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