No Fun

Attention printers: Please send us your story from Hell.

So lately you've been thinking printing was a bad career move?

Had a customer tell me he'd wait on the phone for a folding carton quote. I laughed at him when I realized he was serious. The year was 1988. Quotes took a week and involved samples from Design, estimating and then production review to verify the layout and spec's.

John from Chicago, IL

Had a customer ask for custom packaging that needed to be in Paris by the end of the week for machine testing. I'm in Southern California as is the plant. This was on a Wednesday afternoon. We got the product manufactured but Air France didn't have enough available cargo room for the 17 skids of product.

PJ from Los Angeles, CA

While working with a client on an artwork for a well known drinks brand, I had the challenge of trying to make their brand orange colour out of CMYK. As it was an advert insert there was no option of using a spot colour. Obviously it was a bit muddy and not very vibrant but I was happy that it was the best of a bad situation. Client wasnt and wanted to change it. 

Client: "Can we add more yellow?" 

Me: "The colour has 100% yellow in it." 

Client: "But its not orange enough, can we make it more orange?" 

Me: "We can only use yellow and magenta to make the orange" 

Client: "Ok, can we add more magenta?" 

Me: "We could but the colour will be too red." 

Client: "Ok, then can we add more yellow aswell to balance it?" 

Me: "the colour already has 100% yellow, we cant add any more." 

Client: "Why not, we need to add more yellow!" 

Me: "But we already have 100% yellow." 

Client:"Ok, but can we make it more orange?"

Jim from London, UK

Would you believe I translated the headline from English to Chinese for our first direct mail piece to a local Chinese community? Did I know han`zi` (Chinese logograms)? Hell no, but I was the only one gutsy and foolish enough to match Chinese hanzi to English and hoped it worked.  I can't emphasize enough that I had to very foolish to try. There was no feedback, and I got to keep my job!

D. B.  from Houston, TX 

I had a boss tell me that Canada looked bigger than the U.S. on a map that we had in a catalog. I said, Canada is bigger than the U.S. They requested I make Canada smaller on the map. I still laugh about that one!

Laurie from Philadelphia, PA

Years ago back when we still worked with film, an Account Director ask me to "proceed to film proofs but don't output the film yet because there may be changes"

Jennifer from Toronto, Canada

In the film days, I had a customer who thought [and acted like] he was very knowledgeable about printing using four letter words berate one of my Customer Service Reps because the 4-color process duplicate film he requested sent overnight was NOT in color. After bringing my CSR to tears she got me involved.  I had the customer explain to me the problem. His response was that all the film was BLACK and NOT in color and would never match the 4-color proof that accompanied the film. Well, needless-to-say I very politely had to explain the 4-color printing process to him. This happened many, many years ago and I still laugh about it to this day.

Donald from Detroit, MI

I still hate it when the client says, "Can you turn the picture around so we can see the back?" 

Rick from Orange County, CA

You'll like the job I just finished that turned my hair gray! I got call from a client who wanted to print on red freezer paper, then it was Kraft freezer paper with food grade inks, then it was 375 tools of Kraft freezer paper with black food grade inks and the paper had to be KOSHER! Glad this job is done. Next stop hair salon.

Ina from New York, NY

 My favorite project was when I was working at an In-Plant in NJ. Super, super rush book job. The subject - how to avoid last minute jobs!

Sharon from Pennsylvania

About the book we had to print color pages for: Book title: How to be a Graphic Designer. Printing in CMYK. On one page, they wanted us to print a CMYK image right next to an RGB image to show the difference. On another, they wanted a duo tone (using spot colors) side by side with the same image in CMYK.

Pamela from Norwalk, CT

Back in the early nineties I had a client who was exhibiting in Hawaii - very important event etc. He forgot to produce business cards with his new branding. To get them there in time he asked us to fly them out in person, from the UK, and only consider the job done when they were in his hands and not to rely on ANY courier or hotel reception. Total cost £3,000 (say $5,000?) And this was twenty years ago! The most expensive business cards in the world - ever?

Nigel from the United Kingdom

I had a client ask me to fax her a PMS book one time, but one of my favorite crazy requests was for 32 quarts of red confetti. It actually turned into a fun project.

Mary from Dallas, TX

The phone call came in from a good client, "How do you spell CMYK?" How would you answer that one without losing the client?

Peter from Illinois

In 2003, we were designing and printing a set of stationery products for a client out west. She had just updated her photo and was getting her assistant to email it to us. "But", she added, "make sure you send it back to me as it is the only copy I have."

Don from Toronto, Canada

Attention printers: Please send us your story from Hell.