The Photographer There is an astonishingly large number of excellent photographers, though not all of them are equally good at the same thing. Check their samples for the type of photography you hope to achieve, rather than expecting to find an exact sample. Selecting a photographer is very much like selecting an artist, except that you will want to work with someone whose studio is fairly close to where you work or live. It’s common practice for the client to be present while the photographer works. No one else is as likely to know the products and to keep the photographer from making “obvious” mistakes in what is combined for each scene or shot.

Finding your photographer. If you have not already established a source of photographers, ask your corporate art director, your designer, or other advertising people to make a recommendation. Visit photographers’ studios to get a feel for how you might work together. Ask those with whom you might wish to work to give you their costs on a daily rate, a half-day rate, and a minimum per-shot rate for repetitive photography needing little setup time. Get references and check them, especially for meeting deadlines.

How to order. Give the catalog layout to each photographer you have selected as probably qualified. Have each quote a price for the total job, including an estimate for the additional cost of film and processing. This quotation is for complete ownership by you of all photography, including “outtakes” of film and pictures shot but not used. Specify that the photographer may use any of the pictures in a personal portfolio of samples. If several photographers meet your criteria, have each one do the same picture for the catalog. Keep the picture simple. You’ll be able to tell the difference among them. After reviewing their work with your art director and production director, make a decision on whom to use.

What to specify on your purchase order for photography

• The cost of the entire project, including photography, film, and processing.

• The cost of a photographer-supplied art director or stylist. You may wish to supply such a person yourself or have one supplied by your design studio. If the latter, get the studio’s cost of the charges before giving the assignment.

• The cost of any props or outside purchases made by the photographer.

• The time required to complete the job. Specify the start-up time and the finishing time, not just the number of workdays. Specify what happens if you are not able to start on time or supply materials, as well as if the photographer causes delays.

• Specify whether photos are to be shot for contrast or detail. But first, discuss this with your filmmaker and printer.

• Specify your outright ownership of all photography, including pictures not used.

• Put everything in writing. Have everyone sign before you buy. Getting Your Production Manager and Art Director Involved On any project that will involve the purchase of design, art, photography, film separation, and/or printing, go over the project with your organization’s art director and production director before it is assigned to the outside sources. Also, go over it with them before the completed art is actually approved. Their contributions can save you much frustration and, frequently, much money. Have the art and production directors:

• Review your instructions to suppliers. They will recognize when you’ve asked for too much . . . as well as when you’ve requested too little.

• Review quotations from suppliers, as well as their concepts and production layouts. They will know which prices are negotiable without losing quality. They will also alert you to problems a design may cause in the production of film or in printing or binding. You may elect not to follow their suggestions, but you will be wise to obtain them!

• Review the art and photography for their reproduction quality, as well as purely aesthetic considerations. Listen to their warnings!

• Accompany you to the printer when major jobs are produced. They will be much more demanding—and get better results at the same cost and within the promised time! Finally, recognize the contribution of the art and production directors publicly. They will have earned it!

Typesetting and Desktop Publishing Desktop publishing, the ability to produce layouts and high-quality typesetting from a desktop computer, has revolutionized much of the production of catalogs. It is now possible to do a great deal of typesetting in-house. But before deciding to do it yourself, the following must be considered. Design Quality When in-house typesetting fails to meet promotional needs, it is most often because it lacks the qualities a trained typographer adds to typesetting. Some of this lack results from the use of less sophisticated equipment; some is caused by a lack of training. Likely problem areas include the following:

• Line spacing. How much room should you leave between each line and between paragraphs? This will vary, depending on the size, density (a lighter or darker version of the same type), style (sans serif or with serifs), and characteristics of each typeface.

• Letter and word spacing. How much room should you leave between each letter in a word and between words in a sentence? This will vary for the same reasons mentioned in regard to line spacing, as well as because one has to make a subjective judgment about legibility. Contemporary

SUMMARY

• To show products, use photography rather than art, unless you have a special reason to do otherwise. • Artists and photographers get paid whether you like their work or not, so specify what you need . . . in writing.

• Get your experts involved early before work is assigned. It’s easier and cheaper to avoid problems than to fix them.

• Flexibility. Find the style you want within a given typeface—ultralight to ultrabold, regular, italics, small and large capitals, and so on. With true computer-generated typesetting, this is unlikely to be a problem; most so-called desktop systems, on the other hand, are quite limited.

• Staffing. Who can take over when trained in-house personnel are on vacation, ill, absent for some other reason, get fired, or quit in the middle

of a rush project? Some Typesetting Considerations The more important the project, the more critical is the first impression of its product. Therefore, lean toward outside, professional typesetting. Your less important projects have a cumulative impact that is just as great and just as profit or result sensitive as your most important ones. Everything that bears your name represents you and is the only messenger of that moment. _ Less important? Yes. _ Unimportant? Never! Typefaces Try to limit the number of typefaces used in the body of the catalog to one or two. There are so many variations available within each face, that creativity won’t suffer. In addition to the obvious changes in the size of the type and the use of standard italics or boldface, computer typesetting systems give you practically unlimited degrees of boldness and styles that can have dramatic impact. Changing the amount of space between lines and between paragraphs, indenting or not indenting paragraphs, making all lines of uniform length (“justified”) or letting the margins fall where they may (ragged right; very seldom, ragged left), and the use of capitals for short headlines are useful devices. Serif versus Sans Serif Type Sans serif (square) type is harder for most adults to read than type with serifs (the little flourishes at the ends of each letter, as in the type in this article). The more sans serif type there is in a document, the more difficult it is to read. Hundreds of studies on the legibility of type verify this rule, and—to my knowledge—not a single study contradicts it.

Many designers suggest sans serif because of its designlike, chiseled look. Let what you learn in this article guide you before you agree. Costs To give quotations on typesetting, your typographer/typesetter must have from you a reasonable estimate of both the length of the manuscript and its degree of difficulty. For catalogs, it is best to wait until you have a completed layout that shows both of these. If you must estimate in advance, find the cost of a similar project and add 10 percent (last year’s catalog price, plus 10 percent), plus an estimate for any additional length or difficulty. Typesetters estimate original setting costs based on the number of lines and the number of changes in typeface and style within a copy block (another reason for keeping it simple!). After the type has been set, they charge for clientordered changes on either an hourly rate or a rate reflecting the number of lines corrected. There is always a minimum cost just to put the job into production. That cost is there whether you change just one comma to a semicolon or whether you change every other word on the page. Typesetters do not charge for their own mistakes, called typos or PEs (printer’s errors), only for client changes and alterations. In getting quotations for lengthy typesetting jobs, get the costs for setting with no client changes and the formulas for changes in 5 percent and 10 percent of the lines (i.e., 32 pages times 35 lines per page, or 1,120 lines, with 56 lines corrected for 5 percent), and so forth. Because you will probably have two or three sets of corrections, estimate those costs also. Get the agreed-on pricing structure in writing before you assign the work.