A hotel lobby poster had a 3-color overlap that made my eyes hurt

I was checking into a hotel in Portland last weekend and their lobby poster had cyan and magenta off by a solid 2 millimeters on every letter. The text was readable but looked like a cheap 3D movie with no glasses. I pointed it out to the front desk clerk and she said the designer approved it that way, so no one cared. How do you even let that leave the press without a physical proof check?

2 comments

2 Comments

adams8211d ago

Man, that's infuriating. I've caught stuff like this before on proofs and it always comes down to someone who never zoomed in past 100% on their screen. A 2mm misregister is super obvious on a large format print, so the designer probably just looked at the file at 50% and called it good. Next time you see something like that, ask for the press check sheets, most shops keep them for a week or two. Or better yet, tell the front desk to email the designer directly, sometimes a complaint from a random guest gets more traction than one from the client. Honestly though, for a hotel lobby, that's just lazy work and they'll probably never fix it until the poster gets replaced.

bailey.xena10d ago

Wait, but what if the misregister is actually intentional? Like some designers do that on purpose to make it look hand printed or add texture. Not saying it's good here, but maybe the hotel asked for a "vintage" vibe and the printer just ran with it. @adams82 makes a solid point about the press sheets though, that would settle it real quick.