Design Services Checklist: Rounding-Out the Document Life Cycle
Are Your Document Design Services Up to Par?

According to a 2003 InfoTrends survey of document owners and print buyers in major companies, the number one service that customers desire from their print service providers is creative, or document design services.  These creative services are frequently purchased by many different people throughout an enterprise and from many different providers, in a variety of ways. Sometimes organizations will use the design services offered by printing companies.  Some will pay for services provided by creative or typesetting organizations.  Many will use internal creative services to complete these tasks.  The result – a fragmented approach which lends an incomplete view of the document lifecycle. 

Regardless of the source, businesses realize that they must establish relationships with high quality providers of design services.  But how do you know what qualities to look for when it comes to suitable design services? The market for design services is estimated at nearly $11.3 billion annually.  With so much at stake – including your brand and the security of your documents – design services are best left to a provider who can bring value to the document lifecycle before printing occurs. 

Use the following checklist to help determine whether you’re getting the most from your document design services.

• Highly-tenured design force with deep industry knowledge  No matter the market or the industry, documents drive the business functions that make every organization run, and they have a material impact on productivity and profitability.  When considering your design services, do your documents meet regulatory and industry standards?  Can you place your trust in your design team to leave no stone unturned during a major rebranding initiative?  Ensure your designers have the experience to make educated document revisions in your best interests. 

• Design versatility  Not all design should be done with a single desktop application for use on a single operating system.  The ability to deliver Macintosh and PC-based designs in Quark Express, Photoshop, Illustrator, PDF, InDesign, PageMaker, MS Office, and other industry standard applications lends the greatest flexibility and adds to process efficiencies.  As new applications become available, design services should be expected to acquire expertise to serve these specific needs.

  Scalable design services are also key to meeting the needs of even the largest document design, conversion or branding projects.  With creative agencies geared for commercial print, it’s imperative to find resources with experience in design for digital printing methods, fillable or online forms, variable data for personalization, and industry-specific needs such as manuals, customer notices or statements. 

• Time and money savings with PDF workflow  A document moves through several stages in the document lifecycle before a finished product is obtained – from concept and creation, to approval, order and print.  Both designers and printers need to find ways to speed things up so they can adhere to short timelines and tight budgets.  Not only does PDF workflow convert and compile all source files, fonts and graphics into a single, widely-accepted file format for desktop proofing purposes, it also reduces the time and cost of a job dramatically by eliminating entire steps from the print process. 

• Industry-leading design management processes  In the midst of a conversion, rebranding or major design initiative, process management is critical to keeping the project on track and meeting tight deadlines.  By automating the customer interaction using industry-leading customer relationship management (CRM) and content management tools, designers can track real-time activities including design revisions and approvals, schedule and flag important activities, and make certain designs are meeting customer quality control standards. 

• Digital design repository  If disaster struck, would your designs be protected?  No matter the level of design services you seek, trustworthy design teams should provide for safe storage of all digital design files.  Through the use of a digital design repository, a layer of redundancy ensuring all files are backed up on a daily basis, and disaster recovery security procedures, the risk of losing files is minimized.

  Furthermore, a digital design repository supports versioning control so designers never risk working with, or printing from, an outdated document design.  With the most current designs always accessible, image and brand standards are never compromised. 

• Manufacturability  More and more organizations are attempting to design on their own – and  failing.  Not necessarily failing in terms of meeting the aesthetic requirements of the design, but in terms of manufacturability.  Though a design may look great on screen or when viewing an informal proof, many times when the design is brought to press it is unable to be manufactured.  It is here that the skilled design professional adds value by designing for various production procedures, fulfillment methods, and special finishing options. 

• Secure document design  With a typical organization experiencing more than one fraud attempt in every 1000 documents issued, why run the risk by leaving your documents of value unsecured?  To protect your important documents, it is critical the item looks important and unique. The document should be printed on quality paper, integrating your logo and high-quality graphics, in addition to warning bands and special authentication features. Skilled secure document designers have the ability to incorporate these security features, and more, into your documents to prevent copying, altering and other types of document fraud.