16
Getting Technical
Behind the scenes: Club Merchandise Projects Have you ever wondered what’s involved in bringing a new item into the clubs merchandise store?
Voila! The rep appears at my door with a prototype, ready for final approval.
To shed a little light on things, I thought I’d share the process required for the current project: the T3 Mobil 1 engine cover decal. As always, the first step is to secure a sample. Thankfully, a member was able to provide a viable sample for us to work with. Thanks Mal!
Our suppler picks this up and a few days later we receive a quotation. If accepted, we then await for the artwork to come through for approval.
True to the sacred tradition of annoying customers everywhere, we now notice the errors that were in the previously supplied artwork and we go back to waiting for the second artwork. In the above sample, the decal is; • • •
2mm too narrow the ‘Recommended’ text’s font is 5% too tall, with the ‘e’ noticeably not as round as it should be the barely-there serif detail at the foot of the ‘R’ is too prominent on the sample.
So, we take over for the moment and scan the sample, and reproduce the text ourselves, in a Vector graphic.
In this case, the artwork was accepted. So, we then wait for a sample.