How to help your pre-press agencies design your artworks faster?

How to help your pre-press agencies design your artworks faster? 

Once you’ve established a process to release complete, approved, consistent copy and their translated versions, your next step is to hand them over to the Pre-press agencies require the Pack Copy to create the artwork.  

Sharing all the information required by the agency so that the artwork can be designed first-time-right is a good practice. Here are a few things to help the agency design the artwork in a correct way 

1. Copy elements can be duplicated. E.g. There could be multiple ‘Marketing Copy’ elements. If 3 Marketing Copy statements are to be mentioned one below the other, the agency needs to know the order in which the text needs to be shown on the Pack. To specify the order of the text, a ‘priority number’ (e.g. 10, 20, etc.) is used and the text is arranged in the ascending order of priority. 
   
2. An agency typically prepares a master artwork using the preliminary pack copy and create placeholders for each copy text. When the final approved copy version is available, it replaces the sample text with the final version. It’s a convenient way to create numerous artwork adaptations using a Master Artwork. To facilitate this kind of artwork creation using a Master Artwork, each Copy Element must have a unique code. This unique code is not only used to create the Master, but is also used to create new adaptations by matching the unique code and replacing the text in the Master with the adaptation text. 
   
3. Instructions for the designer in the form of Font size or Font color can also be specified along with location of the copy element in the artwork. Ex. Bottom right of the PDP
   
4. Agency users often have to adjust the copy text placement and font attributes based on the available space. So multiline text can be broken into two or more text segments to accommodate all the text in the available space.
   
5. Combo packs are a special case and may require special instructions to the agency for correct placement of the Copy.
   
6. Symbols, Icons and Barcode images need to be provided along with the text for the agency to finish the packaging artwork.
   
7. For agencies who can accept XML, a GS1 compliant XML file can be generated along with all the above information. This XML file can then be imported into Adobe Illustrator to design the artwork.
   

Reach out to our team to show you how easy managing artworks can be.