When you are the middle of the chain

You are now the middle of a chain

The moment a project involves a printer, a developer, a photographer, a fabricator or a translator, you have a second relationship with its own risks, and the client usually holds you responsible for all of it, whether or not you chose the supplier or marked up their fee.

Two structural decisions determine how badly this can go, and both should be made before anything is commissioned.

Who contracts whom

Option one: the client contracts the supplier directly. You specify and manage; they pay the printer. Your exposure is limited, your cash flow is unaffected, and if the print run is wrong you are helping to resolve it rather than funding it. The cost is less control and a client who may choose the cheapest quote against your advice.

Option two: you contract the supplier and bill the client. You control quality and timing, and you can mark up. You also carry the money (you pay the printer whether or not the client pays you) and you carry the liability if the run is unusable.

For most independent creatives, option one is the right default, and it should be stated in the quote rather than assumed. If you take option two, take a deposit that covers the supplier cost in full before you commission anything. A freelancer funding a client’s print run out of personal savings is a common and entirely avoidable disaster.

Briefing a supplier properly

Suppliers do what you specify, not what you meant. A brief to a printer or a developer needs the same discipline as a client brief, with more numbers.

For print: quantity, dimensions flat and folded, stock and weight, number of colours and whether any are spot, finishes, binding, bleed, delivery date and address. Always ask for a proof, and specify what kind: a digital proof shows content and position, a press proof shows colour on the actual stock. They cost less than a wrong run of five thousand.

For a developer: the exact deliverable, the formats you will supply, the browsers or devices to support, who hosts it, who owns the code, and what happens after launch.

Get the quote in writing with the specification attached to it. A verbal price for an unspecified job is the usual origin of an invoice that arrives 40% higher.

Talk to the supplier before you design

The single most valuable habit in this whole area: call the printer or the developer at the start, not at the end.

Ten minutes with a printer before you draw anything will tell you their press limitations, their preferred file format, their bleed and safety margins, what the stock will do to the colour, the minimum line weight that will survive, and whether the fold you imagined is possible on their equipment. All of that is free and all of it is expensive to discover afterwards.

Printers are generous with this, and it is in their interest: the designer who calls first becomes the one whose files they like, which buys flexibility when a deadline is in trouble.

Attending the press check

For anything with real money on it, be there when it comes off the press if you can. Colour on paper is not colour on a screen, and the moment it is running is the only moment it can be adjusted.

If you cannot attend, ask for a photograph of the first sheet before the full run and be reachable for the half-hour when they want an answer. Give a narrow authority to proceed: “if the first sheet matches the proof, run it.”

Marking up, or not

If you are contracting suppliers, you can mark up (typically in the range of ten to twenty per cent) as payment for managing the risk and the coordination. This is normal practice and defensible, because you are doing real work and carrying real exposure.

What is not defensible is a hidden markup on a job the client believes they are being billed at cost. Say which it is in the quote: “printing at cost plus 15% project management” or “printing billed to you directly by the supplier.” Clients rarely object to a stated markup and reliably object to a discovered one.

When the supplier gets it wrong

It will happen: the colour is off, the trim is out, the build misses the specification.

Sequence that works. Establish what was specified, in writing, and what was delivered, with photographs. Approach the supplier privately with a specific remedy (a reprint, a credit, a fix) rather than a complaint. Most will resolve a genuine error without argument, because a reprint costs them less than losing a designer who brings repeat work.

Tell the client early and factually, with the remedy already in motion. “The trim is 2mm out on the reprint; the printer is rerunning at their cost and it will be with you Thursday” is a supplier problem you are managing. Discovering it from the client is a you problem.

Where it was your file that was wrong (the wrong colour space, the missing bleed, the low-resolution image) say so straight away and pay for it if it is your fault. It will hurt once. Trying to move it onto the supplier costs you the supplier relationship permanently, in a small industry where your file-preparation reputation travels.

Building your own list

Over time the most valuable thing you accumulate is not a client list but a supplier list: a printer whose colour you trust, a developer who answers, a photographer who is reliable on a deadline, a translator who understands the context.

Keep notes: price ranges, turnaround, what they are good at. Pay them promptly, because a supplier who knows you pay on time moves you up a queue when a deadline is in trouble.

The limitation

You cannot fully protect a client from a supplier’s failure, and you cannot fully protect yourself from being blamed for it. The chain is longer than your control, and a fabricator’s machine breaking three days before an exhibition is nobody’s fault and entirely your problem.

What you can control is the paperwork and the sequencing: a written specification, a written quote, a proof approved in writing, a deposit that covers the supplier cost, and a clear statement of who contracted whom. When it goes wrong, and on a long enough career it will, those five things determine whether it is an expensive week or an unrecoverable one.