In the Shoes of a Graphic Designer

At Printing Solutions, our clients come to us because we’re very good at what we do. We posses a skill and craft that requires many years of practice and training, especially for a designer like Justin Ketchum and Chris Danner. These two men work tirelessly to produce some amazing work for our clients, and we couldn’t be happier to have them on our team.

But unless you’ve worked in the industry, you probably don’t know what it takes to be a designer like Chris or Justin. So today we’re going inside a typical day at Printing Solutions to show you exactly what it’s like to be a designer.

Our typical day starts with a production meeting with the Printing Solutions team. Our designers Chris Danner and Justin Ketchum discuss their tasks for the day and decide how much time needs to be given to each one. They also make sure to space projects far enough out that designers can give each one the time and attention it deserves — too many deadlines too close together means that projects come out less than perfect. Morning production meetings help prevent that from ever happening. Once we wrap up our meeting we get to work! From simple text changes to logo creation and brand development for our clients, our designers get to work on a bit of everything each day. They primarily use tools from the Adobe Create Suite, including Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop.

“Many people consider creativity as being a weekend hobby or something you do when remodeling a kitchen. I get to challenge myself creatively every day!” says Justin Ketchum, Printing Solutions’ Creative Director.

Throughout the day there will also be client meetings that a designer may participate in. Often Chris and Justin will sit in on new and current client meetings, but sometimes, the visits are unscheduled.

“The great part about having in-house graphic designers is that our clients know they can call or walk in and chat with them, no problem,” says Kristyn Dingman, Printing Solutions’ Director of Marketing.

But it takes a good deal of creativity from our designers to be able to produce such amazing work for all of our clients. To help Chris and Justin out, we’ve made the Printing Solutions office as creative an environment as possible. The team plays music, basketball, ping-pong, or just lounges on our giant bean bags as needed.

“We have daily tasks that need to be completed in time to be able to hit certain deadlines,” Justin says. “This creates a challenge for us at times because you cannot force creativity. That’s why we make sure our work environment allows for 100% creative freedom.”

“What’s so nice about our creative team is that we all share different types of creativity and skills,” Kristyn says. “We have someone who can come up with a solution to any problem because we have an abundance of creative ideas all in one location.”

And at the end of the project, the entire team’s creativity shows as yet another customer leaves our office thrilled with their new print products.

Need to have your print marketing redesigned? Our team at Printing Solutions would love to help. Give us a call today at 480-596-6300 to get started.