Mac OS X Leopard, dare to dream!

Being a designer and creative person, I am constantly begging for the most up-to-date programs, operating systems and computers out there. There is new technology, new products and new features constantly coming to light. There are seminars to explore your options and emails with teasers begging to be bought. I explode with possibilities running through my head of what I will do with all of these “new” features when I finally can get my hands on them…

The day comes when a bright new shiny “X” box shows up on my desk—oh the possibilities. Mac OS X Leopard… and what do I do you ask?… install it right away, of course! I think I should have gotten a clue from how long it took to install… my shiny new box has been nothing but a pain to my hard drive and ultimately my job ever since. Don’t get me wrong, the new dock with reflection technology on my desktop is pretty, the finder scrolling through files and images is near genius, and don’t forget about the Mac Apple stickers that come in the box, can’t live with out them (BTW-that’s sarcasm) but seriously I have had nothing but problems since the ‘big install’. I recommend waiting to upgrade your operating system until you are ready to upgrade to the most current Adobe programs. So if you haven’t ordered Adobe Creative Suite CS3 yet, don’t install Leopard.

What I detest is an operating system that forces you to upgrade your software for it to function correctly. Of course I want the newest software, but really, let’s join the real world… I don’t get everything that I want when I want it and here at my office, new software is client driven. When the clients start upgrading, so do we.

Since I don’t yet have CS3, I can’t guarantee that everything is going to be ‘just peachy’ if you already have it, but I think that most of the problems will drop out of the picture with the new software and OS combination. What I am experiencing right now is problems with font handling programs, serious program crashing cycles with Indesign CS2 where I can’t even close the document that I was working on and weird duplication when double clicking a Quark 6 file to open it. Then once I get the file open, I can only save it once and then I get an error message when I want to save it again. Instead, I have to use the save as option and replace the file. When I use QuarkXPress 7, the problem is eliminated, but not all of our clients use Quark 7 yet. Oh to praise the day that our clients upgrade and the double click duplication is extinct. Here’s to wishing!!

Let’s be real, I like new features. I think all designers like new features, they make their job easier and opens possibilities of different ways of thinking. We like that. So when I see these kind of glitches and they happen often with new programs and operating systems and their respective ‘bugs’, I get bummed. I don’t want to become jaded by bugs, crashes and fix-it patches. Please, just make it work so I can be creative and do my job. What does a girl have to do to get a program or operating system that ultimately works the first time that it’s installed? I guess keep dreaming!

Kristen

Thinking Green

Hello,

Kristen here, first blog, hopefully the first of many…

Recycled paper: do you understand what you are buying?

Recently I have been involved with researching the many facets of recycled papers to assist our clients in understanding what icons are associated with recycled paper and what each icon means. With just a little research, I was astounded to find out the range of products that are on the market and that in some cases “recycled paper” didn’t mean what I thought it meant.

With so much talk about being “Green” these days, many companies are turning towards recycled papers as one way to help the environment and possibly their bottom line. The question is, do the companies really know what they are buying? When you decide to start buying and printing on recycled papers, you really need to do some research or you might not be getting what you think.

Part of the issue is that “recycled” is a very loose term. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) controls the standards on what is and isn’t considered recycled. But the standards are so broad that a paper with a recycled logo can literally mean that a paper is being made from paper scraps left over from the paper making process. So ultimately you are buying paper with no post-consumer waste that offers little relief to the environment.

If recycled papers is your route, a better option is to look for post-consumer waste recycled or PCW labels, the higher the percentage of PCW the better. 100% PCW means that the paper pulp is derived from all post-consumer waste, no virgin forests are logged for this paper. Another option is to consider the way the paper is whitened. According to The Green Guide, processed chlorine-free or PCF is a better choice than totally chlorine-free or TCF. PCF is required to use at least 30% PCW and is a safer process than TCF. TCF can be used on virgin forest pulp and therefore is not as good of an option.

Another route altogether is to use tree-free papers, which come from agricultural refuse, bamboo, hemp, kenaf and non-tree fibers. The tree-free papers use an alternate source of pulp, rather than logging virgin forests, therefore they don’t reuse post-consumer waste. So they are a good alternative from non-recycled papers.

When you do a little research you start to see all of the options that are available. There is FSC Certified paper that follows a “chain-of custody” from a FSC-certified forest, to the paper manufacturer, merchant and finally the printer and Green Seal certification which is a third party that certifies environmentally friendly products. I think the ultimate goal is to reuse as much post-consumer waste as possible to save our landfills AND to use as little as possible of virgin forest to save the environment. Think about this the next time you look for recycled paper. 

Could a “Squinch” be Right for You?

Doreen here…recently I was asked to do some measuring for a “squinch” analysis for a client. Here are just a few things that I learned along the way.

 As a cataloger, effective product analysis is one of the most important tools you can use to measure your merchandising efforts.

 Sometimes buyers rely on emotions and gut feelings when choosing merchandise for their catalogs. A certain product just “feels” right. This method of choosing products may work for a while if you are just starting out and have a small catalog with a very select audience. However, most marketing experts would agree that some sort of quantitative analysis is the best way to target your winners and therefore give your audience the products they are looking for.

 One method of sorting out the top performers from the so-so sellers is to perform a square-inch analysis, also known as “squinch”. This method reveals the cold hard facts–it  evaluates each item by showing how much it cost, the actual selling price, units sold, total sales, cost of goods, gross margin, cost of catalog space and how much the product contributes to overhead, fulfillment and profit.

I found that allocating space on a fractional basis, say 1/8 of a page works out well.

 Simply stated, the productivity of each item is determined by taking the entire cost of producing the catalog divided by the number of pages, divided by the amount of space each product occupies on the page.

 By measuring the amount of space each item takes up on a page, and comparing it to other items on that page you can determine which items are the most profitable and decide to either give less profitable items less space, or to eliminate them altogether.

This information can be very valuable to merchandising staff as well as creative staff when determining product offerings and space allocations for future catalogs.