If you plan on ever going into a digital business such as web design, I highly recommend you know the basics of the Adobe Creative Suite. Photoshop in particular. Being able to send large files to the web designer who can then change the size of the image on their own instead of having the graphic designer do it not only saves you time, but will save your client money as well.
Freelancing while in school is like teaching yourself the business aspect of self employment as well as learning that it is a lot of additional work when you start sending files to other companies. So far, the only places I haven't had a file issue with were newspapers who have the necessary software to open illustrator and indesign files. As a designer, I like to send the AI files when needed to newspapers and web designers, so they can easily scale the image without making it pixelated or blurry.
Having to resize images a variety of times and resend them as different files is an expensive lesson I have learned. Sometimes it can cost the client if you choose to bill for "file handling charges" and it's frustrating when you are baraged with e-mails from various places who are requesting different sizes and file extensions.
The lesson I've learned is to send not just the AI or INDD file, but to also include a pdf and jpeg. I always send large image files, so when they are scaled down it looks appropriate.
It'll save you time and your client will be happy that they don't have to pay extra for the file handling. You'll also have less of a headache.
Labels: tips and tricks
posted by Alex at 3:41 PM