Impressions - March 2022 - 47

trying to learn everything.
First, sort the artwork that typically comes
into your shop. If you track all art tasks performed
in a 30-day window, you should be
able to categorize and sort tasks into several
buckets (see Figure 2).
1. Creative Tasks: These are orders with
little or no direction or sources for reference,
or they're original, custom design requests.
Allocate these tasks to be outsourced to
other artists so you don't get frustrated and
waste a lot of time.
2. Simple Logo and Graphic Recreations:
These art tasks include the " Canyou-copy-this-off-of-my-business-card? "
variety.
3.
Existing Art with Modifications:
These tasks come from companies with
a new address or slogan that want a slight
alteration to their previous work.
4. Quick Text Mockups or Clipart
Graphics: If you have a graphic catalog of
premade designs or previous designs that
were created as templates, this job type is
a perfect fit.
Modify your production-art categories
to match what's common in your shop,
with the goal of training so that you can
handle each category's tasks the majority
of the time.
Production-Art Training
The following is a short list of training
items that will make most screen printers
and shop owners feel more comfortable
with production art tasks:
1. Drawing: You don't have to be Picasso
to trace a logo by hand, then scan it into
your graphics software and quickly create
a vector that you can edit and separate
for printing. So many assertive non-artists
spend hours in their graphic-design
software slowly creating piece after piece
Figure 2
of a complex logo because they don't try
to draw it.
Start simple. You also can " cheat " by
using tracing paper, a light table and your
phone to create guides (see Figure 3). Make
your source material as good as possible
prior to trying to draw it.
2. Bitmap-to-Vector Tracing Programs:
Your graphic-design software
should include another piece of software
that will allow you to trace an image and
convert it into a vector graphic (Powertrace
in CorelDRAW). Getting to know
this software is essential for saving time
(see Figure 4).
However, you also should know when
it's better to avoid the software and just
draw the design. If you're increasing the
size of a small logo from a tiny business
card to a full-front print, you'll likely have
to re-create or draw it, then Powertrace it.
3. Font Creation, Matching and
Modifications: Since there are millions
of fonts and it's hard to quickly find, match
and modify them, you should know which
fonts you have, as well as some of the font
terms and basics. Consider taking fonttutorial
classes and quizzes. Once you know
the parts of typography, and how different
styles look and are categorized, it'll
be easier to know where to start looking
for weird fonts that you're sure to see on
customer-provided designs.
There are a host of free websites that provide
fonts you can download, but learning
the basic principles of font usage and qualities
will make all font tasks go more quickly.
Learn a couple of
websites - such as
whatthefont.com
- to help you
match fonts. Print
a basic group set of
fonts in each category
to show customers.
Customers
often will rapidly
pick a font from an
example sheet, but
they may take forever
looking at the
choices on a screen.
4.
Figure 3
Graphic
Template Sources
and Clipart:
You may have a
" love-hate " relationship
with clipart
sources, but all of
these types of tools
have their place. The
right piece of clipart
for a rush job literMARCH
2022
P.47
http://www.whatthefont.com
Impressions - March 2022

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