A typical new publication is completed eight to ten weeks after you bring us a manuscript-- a bit less for a simple flyer and up to eight months for a very complicated piece. It is important to contact us well in advance to arrange a schedule. Before we begin work, we'll ask you about:
We'll work with you to develop the most effective piece to meet your goal within your budget.
We are heavily booked by clients who have scheduled their publications up to a full year in advance. If our workload won't allow us to handle your project in a timely manner, we will help you find an appropriate outside vendor.
If you're tempted to do the project yourself, we hope you'll talk with us first. We may be able to help you in a variety of ways, and we'd like to suggest some design guidelines to help coordinate the look of all college publications.
Writing and Editing
Responsibility for the content of each publication rests with the originating department. You will need to assemble the necessary information in a form we can use. What you provide will vary by project, e.g., a typed program, a draft on disk or someone--perhaps yourself--to be interviewed. Our role, too, will vary by project and will be guided by our workload. In any case, we will work with you on content, tone, clarity, style and impact. You will have final approval of all copy. If you need more writing assistance than we are able to provide at the time, and if you have a budget for it, we can contract with an excellent outside writer to assist you.
Design and Production
If you are contemplating a new publication, a talk with us early in the process may lead you to a creative and cost-effective approach you hadn't considered. We seek to design pieces that meet our clients' needs and reflect positively on the college as a whole; our work is guided by college design standards. Our production coordinator constantly seeks the most economical approaches to paper, format, design, and printing; we shop for the best prices through competitive bids and keep each publication moving in a timely manner.
Budget
The projects we work on range in cost from about $35 to $75,000. To help you budget, we can show you samples of recent publications and tell you the cost of each. We also will obtain estimates for the project you propose. With two weeks' notice, we can provide estimates for your department's annual budget request. When we assist you in a job, we must pass along all direct costs, such as typesetting, printing, photography, art, and all writing and design done by outside vendors. Our office contracts for all design and production service and passes along part of the cost to each client through a modest hourly fee for service. We process all purchase orders and invoices through our bookkeeping system and then bill the client a single final figure, through the college journal-vouchering system, at the end of the month in which all vendor invoices are received. Through this process we check the accuracy of all invoices and compile a complete financial and production record for each project.
