Here We Go Again
Written: Jul 25 '01
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Pros: produces nice finished product
Cons: always looking for a reason to hold up your order
The Bottom Line: Overall, I would have to say if you are dealing with Carlson Craft be very prepared for their guidelines.
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| storywriter's Full Review: Carlson Craft |
Working in a Print shop, we use Carlson Craft as one of our vendors. I have had the unfortunate experience, of dealing with them every time we need to send them an electronic file. Every time I hear that I have to set up a full color business card, some type of label, postcard or whatever we might send to Carlson Craft, we generally run into some type of problem. I always wish I can convince my boss to take his business elsewhere, but I think because they are inexpensive, we choose to continue to use them.
I have never had the pleasure of visiting the Carlson Craft division, this might help me understand just why I have to go through eighteen people when I am trying to get my order through. If I had any say in the company, I would tell them to assign every project that comes into their division, to one person or small group of people.
Carlson Craft has specific electronic guidelines for each and everyone of their divisions within their company. Each division is divided into their own specialty, such as the wedding invitations division, the labelworks division, creative colors and business cards. There may be a few other divisions that I am unaware of, but these are some of the main divisions that I have had the unfortunate experience in dealing with.
Today, was a fine example of feeling lost. I had a simple label that I set up in Quark Xpress that was in reverse type. It was simply one color with a full bleed all around. When I heard it was going to Carlson Craft I figured I needed to get it out of Quark and into a program where I can convert it to outlines or curves. The reason why I must do this is because my company runs on IBM's and Carlson Craft if strictly MACINTOSH, therefore I can not send of my IBM fonts to them.
I was having an extremely difficult time getting the electronic specifications for this particular division offline, so I called and asked a few general questions. I was told I needed to set my color to 100% magenta and that I should allow at least 1/8 in for the bleed all around. I did this, exported the file out of Corel Draw as an eps and sent the file. A few minutes later, after sending the file, I was able to get onto the Carlson Craft Labelworks Division, only to find out that I had exported out against their specifications and I could be charged for resubmitting my artwork. I immediately called the company, they flagged my order and I was able to re-export my file out as a illustrator, macintosh and converted to curves file. I called a couple of times in the afternoon and was told my artwork had been approved.
This time, my experience with Carlson Craft may be a little bit easier, but I have had many run in with them before. I recently had to send Carlson Craft a full color postcard that one of my own customers had set up, so there was no way I could convert the file to outlines. I called Carlson Craft up and told them all about my problem with it being a Customer file and they told me that I would need to send the files to them through the mail with color output samples. I did this and wrote them a letter telling them everything I needed and they still managed to call me several times. When the product finally arrived, the side that was camera ready was the side that they really messed up. They were generous enough to give us a 50% discount because we told them we were able to resolve the problem.
These were only a couple of examples of the many problems that I have had to deal with Carlson Craft. Each time, you resubmit a file it would be $15 or they will fix it for around the same charge. I always elect for them to just fix the problem instead of resubmitting something that they are probably just going to call on and try to hold up the order longer.
I can not totally say that the customer service is horrible at Carlson Craft. Although they may have strict guidelines that there customers must follow, I have had the pleasure of dealing with a lot of nice employees at Carlson Craft who have been extremely helpful and understandable. It seems the higher you go up on the ladder, like asking for a supervisor, the nicer they get to you. I would love to mention some of the nice names that I have had the pleasure of dealing with, but I am unsure if that would be appropriate or not.
If you are submitting an order to Carlson Craft, do not expect a quick turn around time. Full color business cards and postcards generally take about two to three weeks, especially if they are calling constantly about the order. Wedding invitation orders are generally a lot of quicker since these are all pre-made, expect those within a week.
Overall, I can't say as I blame Carlson Craft for all of their guidelines. I only wish that we could enforce some of these issues on our own customers, but that is totally impossible. Do to the inexpensive prices, we will continue to use Carlson Craft in hopes that we can learn a little more each day on how to follow all of their electronic guidelines.
Recommended:
No
Competing Products/Services Considered: labes, business cards, postcards, invitations, etc.
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Epinions.com ID:
storywriter
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Location: Somewhere In The United States
Reviews written: 31
Trusted by: 4 members
About Me:
I am married and have one dog. Graphic designer for small print shop.
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