Desk top publishing
Discussion
I am thinking of producing a package of materials aimed at school governing bodies. It is basically a consumable 'How to' guide that they can buy in parts depending on what they need to do which they work through.
It is easy enough producing the content in Word format but I wondered if it might be worth getting it all, or part of it DTP'd and professionally printed ( or PDF'd) to make it look professional.
Overall, do people think the DTP's and glossy is worth the extra or can people see 'quality' in the right content, and some decent word templates in a glossy folder?
I am sure most of the materrials could be based on a DTP'd template, but there are alot of them (probably 100 pages +) and there might also be the need for frequent revisions and changes to make it bespoke for certain schools.
How much might I expect to pay per page for DTP work up to say this kind of standard:
http://www.ncsl.org.uk/media/0F5/44/new-heads-hand...
And then how much could I expect to pay if I wanted to change the odd line or insert an extra paragraph?
Would it be best (ie cheaper and easier in the longer term) to get a DTP template done and learn the package enough to do the basic changes or ceate new docs from a template myself?
It is easy enough producing the content in Word format but I wondered if it might be worth getting it all, or part of it DTP'd and professionally printed ( or PDF'd) to make it look professional.
Overall, do people think the DTP's and glossy is worth the extra or can people see 'quality' in the right content, and some decent word templates in a glossy folder?
I am sure most of the materrials could be based on a DTP'd template, but there are alot of them (probably 100 pages +) and there might also be the need for frequent revisions and changes to make it bespoke for certain schools.
How much might I expect to pay per page for DTP work up to say this kind of standard:
http://www.ncsl.org.uk/media/0F5/44/new-heads-hand...
And then how much could I expect to pay if I wanted to change the odd line or insert an extra paragraph?
Would it be best (ie cheaper and easier in the longer term) to get a DTP template done and learn the package enough to do the basic changes or ceate new docs from a template myself?
100 pages is a lot of information to digest if it's poorly designed. If you're creating a 'how to' then the end user will certainly have an easier time using and understanding the content if it's laid out well.
As a rough estimate I'd suggest a cost of £2.5-3k. Factors which will influence the cost are imagery budget and charts & graphs. If I were taking the job on I'd recommend a good designer to create the templates and first set of documents in such a way that a junior or enthusiastic-and-skint design student could very easily make any changes you need. You certainly shouldn't be paying a good designer to make text amends.
Whether or not that investment represents good business sense will, I think, depend on the retail value of your product, how big the potential customer base is and whether or not you have competitors. How many extra sales would good design need to secure to justify that cost?
As a rough estimate I'd suggest a cost of £2.5-3k. Factors which will influence the cost are imagery budget and charts & graphs. If I were taking the job on I'd recommend a good designer to create the templates and first set of documents in such a way that a junior or enthusiastic-and-skint design student could very easily make any changes you need. You certainly shouldn't be paying a good designer to make text amends.
Whether or not that investment represents good business sense will, I think, depend on the retail value of your product, how big the potential customer base is and whether or not you have competitors. How many extra sales would good design need to secure to justify that cost?
Gruffy said:
100 pages is a lot of information to digest if it's poorly designed. If you're creating a 'how to' then the end user will certainly have an easier time using and understanding the content if it's laid out well.
As a rough estimate I'd suggest a cost of £2.5-3k. Factors which will influence the cost are imagery budget and charts & graphs. If I were taking the job on I'd recommend a good designer to create the templates and first set of documents in such a way that a junior or enthusiastic-and-skint design student could very easily make any changes you need. You certainly shouldn't be paying a good designer to make text amends.
Whether or not that investment represents good business sense will, I think, depend on the retail value of your product, how big the potential customer base is and whether or not you have competitors. How many extra sales would good design need to secure to justify that cost?
There wouldn't be much in terms of charts etc asmost of its is briefing for exercies and consumable worksheets, so a sheet of A4. The more I think about that B&W printing sounds OK inside. The 'decorative' bit I was thinking of were the covers for each exercise which is why I wondered if inside we could get away with WFW, and just spend on covers. If I sold in PDF the printing would be their choice.As a rough estimate I'd suggest a cost of £2.5-3k. Factors which will influence the cost are imagery budget and charts & graphs. If I were taking the job on I'd recommend a good designer to create the templates and first set of documents in such a way that a junior or enthusiastic-and-skint design student could very easily make any changes you need. You certainly shouldn't be paying a good designer to make text amends.
Whether or not that investment represents good business sense will, I think, depend on the retail value of your product, how big the potential customer base is and whether or not you have competitors. How many extra sales would good design need to secure to justify that cost?
I would expect the package to sell for £5-£10 a packs with a school needing 6-8 packs per section and 4 or 5 sections per event ( so about £230 for the complete set). It is the covers for each section which I felt need to look the job, so I might get away with 4 or 5 bespoke covers and then a template ( which could be just pre-printed but DTP's A4) into which I could put text and print it here so i could change the content at will.
Looks like I just talked myself, with youir ale assistance, into a solution: DTP the covers and get a template pre-printed.
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