Approach
It is particularly important, when using design services, that you check that
they can work in the style and manner you require. A good designer will be able to work in a variety of styles, but will still have their own preferred ways of doing things. So, before making a decision, try to find someone who has done similar work before and can show you examples of material.
Working With Your Team
If things are to work well, there are some points to remember and discuss with your suppliers, and these are dealt with below.
Clarify Responsibilities
You should agree who will be responsible for what, so people know what they, and others, will be doing. You should avoid overlaps of responsibility and gaps in responsibility – in this way everyone should have a defined role and every task should have a manager or ‘owner’.
Have Agreed Schedules
You should agree a production timetable which is attainable on both sides. You can start with the present time and work forwards, or you can start with the desired publication date and work backwards. Either way, you should end up with a properly timed schedule, showing each stage of the production process, its manager, its activities and its timescale.
(There is more on this in Chapter 14 ‘Project management’.)
Have Agreed Procedures
Agreed procedures are as important as agreed schedules. It is particularly helpful to ensure that material is supplied in the required format – e.g. on disk, electronically, as film, or as high resolution PDFs. Pages should be produced singly or in ‘printers’ pairs’. You will also need to ensure that ‘impositions’ are provided – either hand-drawn sketches or computer files showing what is meant to be on each page. It is also important that proofs are supplied and returned in good time. Having a set procedure for each element of the production helps keep to schedule and avoids disagreements regarding who is responsible for what, and when particular tasks should be done.
Communicate Effectively
When you have others working with you, whether on a paid or a voluntary basis, you need good communication systems for briefing them and for interacting with them, and it is particularly important to have good communication channels and procedures if there are several parties to interactions. In this way, you can ensure common understanding and a
team approach to activities. In particular, if you have separate designers and printers, you should establish whether they deal directly with each other or via you or another member of your staff. This is important in order to avoid confusion and the possibility of tasks not being done because each person thought someone else was doing it – in such a case you could well end up as ‘piggy in the middle’. In order to communicate well the following things are useful:
- meeting on a regular basis with your associates, suppliers, agents, volunteers, editorial board, etc.
- letting people know what you expect from them and telling them in good time of any changes to requirements; being clear and explicit and keeping in touch without pestering
- having agreed schedules/areas of responsibility, copied to everyone who needs to know, and providing sufficient scope for people to respond flexibly to changes in circumstances
- finding out what motivates the people with whom you deal and bearing this in mind when interacting with them
- letting people know how you think they are doing and giving others opportunities to give you feedback on how your relationship with them is going: both positive and negative feedback can be helpful as long as they are directed towards a result
- keeping records of discussions and action points