Special Report Printing, Paper & Production
Similarly, catalog and commercial printers are finding they have to support digital files arriving in either QuarkXPress or InDesign native formats. You can see the challenge — how best to manage content, no matter the application in which it was created, without supporting multiple licenses to both layout applications.
While InDesign is reported to be somewhat "Quark friendly" — meaning, it'll open Quark documents from some older versions of the applications (e.g., QuarkXPress 3.x, 4.x) — it may not be as reliable for opening files from more recent versions. This presents a problem for catalogers who may be managing and reusing content from legacy QuarkXPress documents, or catalog printers who may be receiving digital files that were built in everything from QuarkXPress 3.0 to the most recent version, QuarkXPress 6.5.
But catalog executive Leon Lazarus has come up with a solution.
Design the Workflow
Lazarus is the creative director for Tustin, Calif.-based Logomark, a catalog company specializing in personalized promotional items, gifts and novelties. In this role, Lazarus oversees the proper application of the company's corporate identity for all of its marketing, catalog and advertising products.
"Logomark produces a range of print including catalogs that distributors of promotional products select from and carry with them as a resource and sales tool," Lazarus explains.
Under Lazarus' direction, Logomark's design team produced an impressive roster of print, including 24 "slim jim" books, its flagship catalog (672 pages with fold-out laminated tabs), a 134-page holiday catalog, six close-out books, and all of the company's advertising, marketing collateral and trade-show displays.
Logomark's digital workflow for print is quite streamlined. Catalogs come together rather simply. Once the product selections have been made, the designers work with brand managers to group them for layout.
"The images are shot digitally and accessed from the photo studio image library using AppleTalk," Lazarus explains. "They're clipped, cleaned, saved locally and placed in an Adobe InDesign document. Brand managers provide the product data and pricing, while the marketing department is busy writing the copy. All of this content is then aggregated by the designer who completes the layout.
