Paper Money #61: All About Art

5 Comments

1. John on 02.03.2012 at 13:00

   Thanks for this wonderful, informative, and fun episode.

   I was fortunate enough to have access to a wonderful graphic designer with extensive print experience. Without his help, the RGB-to-CMYK conversion process alone would’ve driven me mad.

2. Ben Clark on 02.03.2012 at 17:08

   RGB to CMYK is a nasty business. Like I said in the show, it really makes the colors change dramatically. You were lucky to have someone to help you with it! I’ve seen this process turn an otherwise tidy set of artwork into a nightmare that took 6 weeks to get right.

3. Ryan on 06.03.2012 at 14:05

   I loved your February podcast about art and printing. As I was listening to it I was thinking “i wish we had listened to his podcast 5 months ago.” Greg content guys! Anyways, here’s my question.

   Why would a printer/manufacturing suddenly cancel a job with no reason or explanation?

   Here’s the story:

   We are printing our first game. It is a non-collectible Expandable card game. The cost was estimated for approximately 18k for about 5000 units. A very small print run. We spent a lot of time talking back and forth. We built a relationship asking questions and preping our funding along with the cards over the course of several months.

   My friends and I are very new to the business. I told my friend (leader of the project) that proofs are important. About a week before print he told me that we weren’t going to get physical proofs , only digital.

   I don’t know a whole lot about printing, but I always thought that proofs were physical. I just wanted to make sure the colors came our right.

   I was very adamant about physicals proofs. My friend later told me that when he asked about physical proofs he said that they don’t offer that, but the person he was talking to at the printer said that if it doesn’t out right they would re-do the print run.

   I was a bit skeptical, but I told my friend that as long as we get that in writing, I’m guess I’m okay with it.

   I did some research and we later learned that what I was requesting for was “wet” proofs.

   Anyways when my friend called to make this request the person he was talking to was saying “it shouldn’t be a problem, let me check with my operation manager.”

   We get a call back and they say “we’ve decided not to print your game.”

   Anyways, with us being new I’d like to know the business better. I’m curious to know what happened. Can you speculate on why they did that? Thanks.

   Ps. We did find a manufacture and we are about 45 days from receiving our product. Feel free to email me for anymore question to help clarify. thanks!

4. David Villegas on 09.03.2012 at 13:45

   Gents:

   First, excellent work on the show. Over the last two years, a friend and I started Gamer Nation Studios in the dream of producing our first game. After two years of design and playtest, we are 6 days from ending our first Kickstart and we are already 160%. Edition Wars will be the dream for us!

   Anyway, (Ben, I noticed that you don’t say “anyways” as much as you used to) the information on the show in the last two years has proven both insightful and valuable, but I want to chime in on this one in particular. I am fortunate that I have massive adobe and printing experience, but you simply cannot underplay the importance of starting in the right format for your job, building in the digital space, and finding a good artist BEFORE you even talk about deadlines.

   Also, CMYK is a HUGE DEAL!!!! Try finding a royal blue, go ahead! Purple?!? Forget about it! Some colors just are a pain to reproduce as Ben said, and everything will come out darker than you think due to the equipment you have versus the printer. Bank of it.

   Best of luck guys, I hope you can stop by our booth at GENCON and say hello, I’d love to meet you in person. It is actually under d20Radio and MapsofMastery.com…we are splitting it this year.

   BTW, who was the printer that flaked? Just to make sure we are not using the same! Thanks!

5. rich on 15.01.2014 at 18:24

   Thanks – that was really informative!

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