Thoughts on print buying.

I'm not an expert on print buying. I know two people who are*. But I'm still amazed at what people pay for getting stuff printed. Of all the things I get as part of my work, print costs vary the most. As a designer, when I get involved in the print side I simply pass on the cost. Any markup is minimal and I include a management fee if I negotiate with the printer. I think clients are unhappy now with so called agency markups of 20-50% on their print bills.

Having said that I don't always use the cheapest printer and I don't spend hours shopping around. I tend to use people that I've had consistent good results from and from who I know I'll get a good result. Also I want as much automation as possible, I want to be able to upload files and get them in the print queue as soon as they are ready to go. I want the process to be predictable and repeatable. And I want guaranteed turnarounds.

*one of them lives here: http://www.printbydesign.co.uk/, and no, they haven't paid for this ad, nor are they expecting it to appear.

Ruth's 30th Birthday

Ruth had her 30th birthday last week. So I put together a book of cartoons and pictures to celebrate the fact. When she was 19 or 20 Ruth decided to turn vegetarian. So I did a picture of her being a veggie.

Drawing Fairies

I've been asked to teach a six-year-old how to draw Fairies. Having, as far as I recall, never having drawn a fairy before I had a practice.

Actually it was fun. Here's the initial attempts, I beginning to think I could get into this. The paper was first washed over in the pink and then I sprinkled salt and sugar in it to get a texture. The fairies were drawn with a tan-coloured Pitt artist's pen and then I added red and white paint to bring them out a bit.

Violet ray again.

Got it working. At least the comb bit. The mushroom part doesn't want to know. But the comb now lights up a beautiful pink-mauve glow that doesn't quite reach the end. Very happy.

An idea about toys and making stuff

Not sure if this is even the right title, but I think the idea might have something.

I was at my school reunion yesterday and I stood next to a wall where I made one of the great discoveries of my school days. The 1960s spy movies were all the rage and we decided to make our own. Unsurprisingly, I guess, I was the only one who made anything. Crude approximations of tiny spy tvs and the suchlike. But the brought toys wouldn't have been that much more sophisticated.

Now days you can buy a quality of modelling and interactivity in the toy isle that only the best hobbyist could aspire too. And it's cheap.

For example:

Current 5 inch Dalek toy (October 2010)

12 inch figure 1965 http://www.skaro.org/toys.htm

Two Daleks and a Mechanoid - slightly better I had the one on the right, and that was the pinnacle of available toy Daleks - these are all about 7" tall. http://www.skaro.org/toys.htm There's an advert for them I found here: dalek ad 

You can see the difference in quality in these toys. The blue Dalek could easily be duplicated with  cardboard and a bit of imagination. The others are more accurate but still fairly simple. Cost of the grey 1965 Dalek: 4 shillings and sixpence. (Or 14 copies of the 1965 Beano) Cost of the 2010 Dalek, £10 (Or five copies of the 2010 Beano). Not quite sure if comparing the cost of the Beano is relevant. But it is some kind of yardstick.

So we deny people the chance to make things for themselves; by making stuff so well we set the entry bar too high. By setting the price so cheap there is no financial motive to make it for yourself. Finally by making it so explicit we deny the imagination.