comma, dammit
Jan. 11th, 2005 01:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kirkcudbrightIt's over, it's done, it's finished. Mostly.
If you want to know what I've been doing for the last month instead of reading or writing LJ, have a look at this. The Arisia Souvenir Book (aka the program book) is my biggest design project to date. The first project where I've had to deal with a real printer, instead of Kinko's. The first non-class project to involve full-color full-page bleeds. Hell, it's the first thing I've done for Arisia that hasn't been in Microsoft Word. (If you want to see what it's possible to do in Word, see this.)
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klingonlandlady is right - clients suck. Even when they're your friends. They change the requirements, and don't tell you when they've changed the requirements. They don't give you what you need, or give you pictures that look like ass. To be fair, I've been on concom long enough, and in enough positions, to know that most people (present company included) are doing yeoman's work; they just don't have spare cycles for extranea.
And the changing requirements are often with good reason. During the initial planning, the conchair and Publications decided that it wasn't important to have the program participant bios as part of the permanent written record of the con, but could just go on the website. It turns out that Programming, when finally consulted, felt differently, to the extent that they wanted to print their own document. I like to keep the documents focused, but I'm also opposed to proliferating documents unnecessarily, and the program book seemed like the least bad place to put the bios (not to mention the "traditional" place for them). So the...lengthy...Word doc has become 4½ pages of small and close (but not unreadable) text.
Bitching and long hours aside, I've really enjoyed this job. My minimal goals were to do a better job than the fellow who did the souvenir books for the last 4 years, and to do it on time and within budget. For 4 year running, we've been paying overtime and rush fees because D. couldn't deliver the book to the printers on time. (I'm over budget by 10%, but the only way I could have made it would have been by printing a black & white cover for the first time since '96 or so.) My real goal was to push myself, sweat the little stuff, and do as good a job as I could within the limits of my tools and talents.
So I just finished uploading to the printers' ftp server. It took 2½ hours to move 207M, so I read all of Coraline as I watched the hash marks tick by. I picked it up at Worldcon, but it fell into the new-books-to-be-read heap.
Oh yes, I almost forgot about the commas. I spent an entire afternoon proof-reading the program participant bios, mostly adding commas, occasionally removing commas. I want to put a large dish of commas in the Green Room, because these people need them (present company excepted, of course).
And another final addendum. Aside from signing off on the proofs, and receiving the books at the con, my job is finished. I have no at-con responsiblities. I don't think this will last, but it's an odd flavor, and I'm going to savor it briefly.
If you want to know what I've been doing for the last month instead of reading or writing LJ, have a look at this. The Arisia Souvenir Book (aka the program book) is my biggest design project to date. The first project where I've had to deal with a real printer, instead of Kinko's. The first non-class project to involve full-color full-page bleeds. Hell, it's the first thing I've done for Arisia that hasn't been in Microsoft Word. (If you want to see what it's possible to do in Word, see this.)
klingonlandlady is right - clients suck. Even when they're your friends. They change the requirements, and don't tell you when they've changed the requirements. They don't give you what you need, or give you pictures that look like ass. To be fair, I've been on concom long enough, and in enough positions, to know that most people (present company included) are doing yeoman's work; they just don't have spare cycles for extranea. And the changing requirements are often with good reason. During the initial planning, the conchair and Publications decided that it wasn't important to have the program participant bios as part of the permanent written record of the con, but could just go on the website. It turns out that Programming, when finally consulted, felt differently, to the extent that they wanted to print their own document. I like to keep the documents focused, but I'm also opposed to proliferating documents unnecessarily, and the program book seemed like the least bad place to put the bios (not to mention the "traditional" place for them). So the...lengthy...Word doc has become 4½ pages of small and close (but not unreadable) text.
Bitching and long hours aside, I've really enjoyed this job. My minimal goals were to do a better job than the fellow who did the souvenir books for the last 4 years, and to do it on time and within budget. For 4 year running, we've been paying overtime and rush fees because D. couldn't deliver the book to the printers on time. (I'm over budget by 10%, but the only way I could have made it would have been by printing a black & white cover for the first time since '96 or so.) My real goal was to push myself, sweat the little stuff, and do as good a job as I could within the limits of my tools and talents.
So I just finished uploading to the printers' ftp server. It took 2½ hours to move 207M, so I read all of Coraline as I watched the hash marks tick by. I picked it up at Worldcon, but it fell into the new-books-to-be-read heap.
Oh yes, I almost forgot about the commas. I spent an entire afternoon proof-reading the program participant bios, mostly adding commas, occasionally removing commas. I want to put a large dish of commas in the Green Room, because these people need them (present company excepted, of course).
And another final addendum. Aside from signing off on the proofs, and receiving the books at the con, my job is finished. I have no at-con responsiblities. I don't think this will last, but it's an odd flavor, and I'm going to savor it briefly.
