Submitting Print Samples to your Printer

Everybody hates chicken scratch! So why torture your printers with it? Sometimes samples are a necessity when specifying print jobs but take the time to mark up your samples cleanly. The cleaner your samples are the easier it will be for your suppliers to review and provide accurate quotes. I suggest digitizing your samples if at all possible. The price of a cheap scanner is less than the price of a mistake in production because of miscommunication on the sample. If stock or matching ink color is the issue then obviously you need to send a sample but if your concern is the attributes then digitize that sucker and send it out via email, ftp, disk or whatever! Below are examples of a poor sample and a good sample. Put your chicken scratch on a separate sheet of paper and reference the attributes by number or letter. It makes life a lot easier for your printer and for you when referencing. Now obviously there are more sophisticated ways of doing this but if this is all you got then at least make it organized!