The following guidelines are a blueprint for working together to produce the best possible creative materials to meet your communications needs.
Costs
The Communications Office does not charge for planning assistance, design, writing, proofreading, website development or other services carried out by our staff. If you wish to print or mail something—or if your project requires the services of a website plugin paid subscription, freelancer or outside vendor (for example for necessary photography or videography)—your budget will be responsible for those charges. We will help you manage costs for printing, mailing and other services that involve outside costs by providing estimates to assist your decision-making process. We will work with you to make the most of your budget and provide creative alternatives whenever possible. When we arrange for services outside our department, we will do so as much as possible with known vendors from whom we can expect good service and competitive pricing.
Lead Times
The amount of time required to complete a project varies, depending on the complexity of the work requested and the completeness of the content provided. We prefer that the content is complete before we begin on your project. For projects printed at Duplicating, we would like 10 work days to complete. For projects requiring outside printing, you can expect the design and printing process to take about four weeks from the time all required content has been supplied (two weeks for design and revisions and two for printing). For all other projects, we will provide an estimated lead time once all information has been submitted and reviewed. Please plan on at least a two-week lead time.
Proofing and Revisions
As initial designs and subsequent revisions are completed, you will have the opportunity to review proofs to ensure that they meet your needs and include correct information. Please proof all text carefully, including the spelling of names, phone numbers, dates and times, addresses and other numbers. Our role is to help with initial proofreading, but you are responsible for the final proofing and accuracy. For most projects, we follow standard professional practice by giving you up to three sets of revisions in order to perfect a project. In most cases, you won’t need that many.
