Launching a Design Product with Kickstarter

Ian Paget: I recently found out about you through the Kickstarter product Swatchos, which is something that you're currently working on right at this moment. Could you tell us a little bit more about this project?

Andy Brown: Sure. So, Swatchos, they are a pack of 129 cards and each card is a different colour, and they're designed to be used for picking single colours, or because all the cards are loose, you can kind of mix and match them to create a colour scheme. So, that's the kind of essence of the project.

The project came about because I was looking for a better way to work with colours and I couldn't find one, and so I ultimately made the product for myself. The fact that it's got backed and things is great, but it was very much I wanted this product. So, I'm super happy that other people were interested as well.

Ian Paget: Yeah, yeah. I know I'm always picking colours, and that's why I thought it would be great to get you on this show. I quite rarely now support or back Kickstarter projects, but this one, a friend shared it with me and I thought, "This is fantastic. The audience would love this."

But also, there's the side of it where there's people in the audience that are graphic designers like you are that come across these problems. And we're actually in this amazing situation where we have the knowledge and skills to actually create our own products. So, through this conversation, I'd like to find a little bit more about you, colour theory, and also maybe get some advice from you for how someone can potentially do something on their own if they see that need like you.

So, you've explained why you created this, but do you want to talk about how you actually use these cards to select a colour palette?

Andy Brown: Yeah. So, I guess there's two things that they aim to do. You can either use them just like a colour chart, where you just want to pick a single colour and you know for print, what that value is. So, that's one way. But really, the heart of what they're about is choosing multiple colours that all go together. So, I use them probably most... because I have some pre production ones already made, so I use them mostly for branding projects.

So, where I want to present the client with a few different logos and colour schemes to go along with those, that's where I find it most useful. And normally, I might have a feeling of what I'm trying to achieve, but because they're also kind of loose and you're working with your hands, it's very organic, so I just flick through them and go, "I kind of like that one," and then I'll put a card next to it and go. "Oh, that works nicely," and then it kind of develops from there.

So, when I'm picking colours like that, there's not a lot of theory that's going into it, I'm just kind of winging it. But because it's fast, it's easy to play around with colours quickly and go, "No, that doesn't work. Try that." And they're also designed in a way... So, the front colour, there's a main front colour, and then on the back, there are other colours, but along the left hand edge, there is a darker version of the front, and then on the right hand edge is a lighter version of the front. So, when you fan them out, like a hand in a poker game or something, then you can see that kind of edge colour.

So, I've been fiddling around with samples and things for ages, trying to get the right design for it so that it could be as quick as I wanted it to be, because I think when you get a tool that helps you be really fast, it kind of melts away and you can just very organically start mucking about with them. So, that's how I use them. I've used them for other projects as well. Like I've used them for brochure projects, for just picking a colour scheme to go throughout the whole brochure, and things like that. But the cards have CMYK values, but they also have RGB Hex codes on them as well. So, you can use them for web projects and screen projects as well.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I'm really looking forward to get them. I know the actual product doesn't come out until next year, but how I currently pick colours is on my screen, and it's not the most hands on way of doing it.

Andy Brown: Right, it's not.

Ian Paget: And even though I've got the Pantone swatch books, I find them really awkward to use sometimes, I get them out, the pages get stuck together and trying to find the right colour is sometimes difficult. But I love the idea of this. In my office, I thankfully got a nice floor space, so I can imagine me whilst I'm working on a project, now opening up this pack of cards and almost throwing them on the floor and thinking, "Oh, that's cool." And maybe there would be happy accidents and things that come across that I wouldn't expect. I mean, that's something that I do a lot with sketching.

I see a lot of people just jumping straight into Illustrator, but I like sketching because you do get those happy accidents and those unexpected little twists and features and things that you wouldn't have thought of until you put it down. And I think this approach to choosing colour will be the same way. So, I think it'd be a lot more fun and more creative to actually choose colours with these new cards that you've created.

Andy Brown: Yeah. And Pantone books and things like that, they totally have their place. There's not really a replacement for those.

Ian Paget: No, there's not, not at all.

Andy Brown: But absolutely, I've been trying to use my Pantone book like this where I've folded up pages so I can get the colours next to each other and see how they look together, but ultimately, they're on different pages, and there are ones at the top and ones at the bottom. For creating a group of colours, they're not great at that. And so yeah, so that's how it came about.

Ian Paget: And plus, they're quite expensive. I don't really want to be folding them and cutting them up and pulling them apart.

Andy Brown: I know, yeah. My Pantone book is ripped.

Ian Paget: Okay. So, I think there's going to be people listening to this that obviously don't have these cards already, and I know that they can go and check out the product on Kickstarter, which I'll link to. If you're listening to this right now when this is released, the product should still be on Kickstarter, so you can still back it, and hopefully, if you're listening in the future, you will have some kind of version on your website and so on. But I think for those that are listening now that may be want to start using colour in an interesting way, how would you do it without these tools? So, say if you did have a branding project, just so that we can add some value to this and we're just pitching your product to people, how would you go about choosing a colour palette without this tool that you created?

Andy Brown: Yeah. So, firstly, what I would say is that I'm not a colour expert, and that's why I made this. But what I would say is that I think it's really important to find a way to choose colours quickly. The box of Swatchos is not for everybody, because I've sent samples and people were just like, "No, I do it on screen," and that's totally fine because they're fast at that. And so I think as long as you've got a tool where you can quickly create colours, then I think that's okay. So, whether that's in Illustrator, kind of creating blocks of colours and just getting a big kind of swatch panel open where you can quickly click and mess around.

Now, there are theories in colour, obviously, but what I find is that when I can experiment, that's when I find things that I really love. And probably, I've lucked out on a method that theory would show, but really, I'm just winging it. And I think as long as you find a way to do that quickly, that's okay.

Another thing that I've started doing since I worked on this project was I started painting. And so I've bought tubes and tubes of acrylic paints, and I try and create a few small paintings each week now because I want to learn about colour. And so just experimenting with them... And paints are great because they're easy. You can kind of quickly just knock something up and go with it. So, I think even that, buying some tubes of paint, if you wanted to, you can buy like cyan, magenta, and yellow and just experiment with those, and black obviously as well. So, you could do that and just go, "Ah, what's this? How does this work?" And so I think that's really helpful.

What I've also done and found really helpful is I started listening to the Learn to Paint Podcast, and I found that great because I kind of think that artists, and painters in particular, probably, are kind of like the real masters of colour, they're in it every day, all the time, and as a designer, you're using colours a lot, but I kind of feel like they're even more involved in colour. And so I found just hearing different artists talk about colour has been super helpful, and I've tried to explore some of that when I've been painting to go, "Oh, how does that work." And, Oh, yeah, I see when I mix those two, that creates a less vibrant colour or a more vibrant colour." And so that's my journey, I guess, in colour.

And like I say, I am by no means an expert, but what I do think is really important is to be able to experiment in whatever way you find the most natural so that you can experiment rapidly, and then you learn quicker.

Ian Paget: And it's really interesting what you say about looking at more traditional fine art for working out colour and learning about colour, because actually, it's something I don't really think about. I use the tools within Photoshop and Illustrator and I can create the exact colour that I want, but actually in order to do that, you need to have an understanding of what colours do you need to add this, how much more magenta do you need to add? How much more yellow do you need to add? You do need to have an understanding of that in order to create the exact colour that you're potentially looking for. So, gaining that understanding from painting...

Funny story. I got quite into model making at one point and sculpting out of clay using Super Sculpey and baking it and stuff like that. I am rubbish at painting and I have full respect for anyone that can actually mix up the exact colour that they want with like four pots of paints. It's an absolute skill. So, I appreciate what you're saying about real fine artists really mastering that skill of colour selection.

Andy Brown: Yeah, absolutely, they do. And also, sometimes I'll do these paintings with my kids as well, and my kids knock out amazing colours sometimes, and I'm like, "How can you just do that?" Sometimes they have a knack for seeing it and not overthinking it and they just love the colour, so they stick it in there and it works really well. And certainly, looking at, I mean, I guess one of the most famous people for working purely kind of on colour is Rothko, Mark Rothko, and so I've been kind of looking at some of his paintings where they're really abstract, very minimal, but the colours are fantastic, and he's exploring different things. So, I like his paintings as well, and they kind of inspire me a bit too.

But yes, certainly kind of looking at the painters and more traditional artists, I think is a great place to get inspiration. I think sometimes I'm a little reluctant to look at recommended, almost like top 10 colour schemes. I don't know whether that's just because I'm a bit contrary or whether it's because I feel like it's cheating. I don't know. But I want to kind of explore it and understand it rather than just maybe taking one. I mean, at the same time, there's good in that of replicating something that works really, really well, so I think that's good too.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Sometimes how I select a colour palette, particularly for something like a logo design, it tends to be based on the general aesthetic I want to try and get across. So, I'm working on a project at the moment that's all about conservation. So, how I selected that is I actually googled some pictures of landscapes, and like hills, water, sky and stuff like that, and I picked the colours from that, and it created this really nice kind of quite earthy, organic, natural palette, and it just gives you this immediate feeling of the real natural landscape.

And I really think there's no set way of creating colour palettes, but there's ways like that, finding images and then using the picker tool in Photoshop just to pick out a few colours from that image. There's a lot of tools out there like coolers.co I think that's one, that one's really good, so you can just generate colours. But I don't have anything real or manual or anything like that, it's all on my computer. And to be honest, I spend almost all my waking day on a screen, whether that be my mobile phone or my desktop. So, things like sketchbook work, I do that intentionally to get away from the computer. And being able to select a colour palette in this way, I'm really excited about. And I don't know if anyone's ever done anything like this before, but I am quite excited about having these cards.

I did just want to ask one last question. So, in terms of the accuracy of the cards, I've spoken... So, I did an interview a few months back with a guy from Pantone, and we spoke about screen calibration and all that sort of fancy stuff. So, people that really want to learn about proper colour accuracy, they can go back to that episode. Obviously, Pantone books, if you have a new book and you look after it, like keep it in a dark place, they remain really accurate, but in terms of these cards, how accurate are the printed colours on them?

Andy Brown: Yeah. So, the colours on them, I mean, they're aimed to be as accurate as possible, and I've done that in a few ways. Firstly, kind of using the correct colour profiles and communicating that with the printers so that when you're designing something and saying this is what this colour is, that gets translated correctly all the way to the printers so that you're talking about the same colour. But then also just using great printers as well. So, the guys who are going to be printing this are the same guys who printed one of my print handbooks in the past, one of those editions, and they're not the most affordable of printers, but their quality is unbelievable. And so that was really important to me, that the colour is as accurate as is possible. So, working with them was kind of really key to that as well.

And things do vary, and that's the same with Pantone books. If you print on a glossy paper the same ink as like a uncoated paper, so a rougher paper, then both of those will look different. So, understanding what the paper is as well is an aspect to that, so that'll be communicated as well. So, knowing, okay, this is printed on a silk, so if I print the same colours on a silk it's going to look like that, then that's great.

In terms of kind of when those colours go from the card to your screen, there's a bigger jump there. So, the accuracy won't be as close but it's pretty close. So, I would say that if I'm doing a screen project, that I'd use the Swatchos to create a colour scheme, transfer them, and then maybe it needs a slight bit of tweaking once it's on my screen. That's how I've used them.

Ian Paget: Yeah. And I mean, everyone's monitors are going to be different anyway. The only way that you can really control that is by properly calibrating it anyways. I like to choose the colours by my Pantone books, but actually because you've taken that extra effort to get these printed on high quality materials, again, providing I keep them in a dark place to make sure that they don't recolour too much, it should be a nice way to more accurately choose a potential colour scheme that I can then... because you mentioned that it's got the colour values on the card as well, I can then pull that into Illustrator and have a better idea of how that will actually look when it's printed as well. So, I like that.

Andy Brown: Yep, absolutely.

Ian Paget: Cool. So, we've spoken about the product, and like I said, I'll link to that in the show notes for anyone that wants to go and check that out, but I think there's going to be people listening to this that are probably thinking, "I've got an idea. I want to fix that. I want to create a product on my own, I want to launch it on Kickstarter." So, I would love to go into a little bit about how you created the product, how you launched it on Kickstarter as well. So, could you do share some behind the scenes kind of development work for how you actually went about creating this product?

Andy Brown: Yeah, absolutely. I think as designers, we love creating things, and so it's kind of in our blood. And so I'm always trying to fix things and make something. So, I think once I realised the way I'm choosing colours isn't working out how I want it to, then I was like, "I want to create something that fixes that problem." And so I started just scribbling ideas, probably in between my other projects, just as I had thoughts, and then that progressed into Illustrator, and I'd start mocking up card designs, and printing them off and holding them in my hands and going, "Would this be helpful? I don't know." So, that kind of process. And that's a very enjoyable process, making something and critiquing yourself and going kind of round in circles.

And then I got to a point where I thought, "I think this is a good idea. I think this is not an idea just for me. I think other people might find this helpful as well." So, then I started thinking about Kickstarter. Now, Kickstarter has been in the back of my mind for a while in terms of doing a project, because I have a group of customers already through the Print Handbook, then being able to kind of communicate with them and let them know that I've got a Kickstarter going, it made sense for me to do that, and it's also really low risk, because if people don't like the project, don't like the product, and you don't get funded, then you don't have to take it any further, and that's fine. Yes, you have to create all the content and material and videos and all of that, but really, for me, that wasn't a huge hassle. So, that's how I kind of got started in it.

In terms of kind of actually creating the campaign, because this was my first Kickstarter, and I created a campaign and went through it step by step. It guides you very clearly through. So, I just went through all the details and just started filling up spaces. And at that point, I think I wasn't even sure I was going to do it, but I was like, "I'm just going to put it in and see what it ends up looking like, and see if I think I can do this." And I just did a little bit of that each time and yeah, and got there in the end, and people seem to like it.

Ian Paget: For anyone that might not know what Kickstarter is, would you mind briefly explaining kind of how that platform works so the people are aware? I think the thing I want to make clear, it's not a shop.

Andy Brown: No, it's not. So, it's a crowdfunding platform. There are others out there as well. But ultimately, you launch a campaign, so mine, I think it ran for 28 days or something, or is running for 28 days, and I have a limit of £4,500, because it costs a lot of money to print them because they're getting printed at such high quality. And so I say, "Okay, I need to make that much." And then people chip in and say, "I'm willing to back your project, and if it reaches that goal, then I'll buy some." And so ultimately, people are kind of slowly building on that person by person, and once you get to that 4,500, or whatever it might be, then you are required to carry out the project and get those things printed and send them to the customers who said they want them. I don't know if that's the most succinct way of explaining it but-

Ian Paget: No, no, that's fantastic. It's just so that people will understand that Kickstarter is basically a platform where you can create projects that don't yet exist and people can fund them. A lot of people make the mistake that it's a shop and they expect to have the product, but actually, no, you're just funding them to help make that thing exist. There's no guarantee on quality, but it sounds like you're genuinely working hard to create a really decent product. I think the amount of money that you're aiming to get is a fair, reasonable amount. You only really need a handful of people to come in and chip in to make it a thing. So, I think the way that you've done it is good.

In terms of the actual product... I know when you create something for Kickstarter, the product doesn't really need to exist, you just need to kind of sell a vision and show people what it could potentially be. How much of the product did you have to develop in order to post up that campaign on Kickstarter?

Andy Brown: Well, I think it depends on the project. So, some Kickstarter campaigns, it might just be like a 3D render of something, so it's not being physically made. I did get the cards printed. I got them printed using digital printers, so the quality is less and the robustness is less, but ultimately, they work the same.

I mean, I had kind of printed the odd card out here just on my printer here, but printing out that many cards was a bit of a nightmare, and printing something using digital printers was fairly low cost, just as an experiment. So, I got just a few printed. It also meant that I could send some to other designers, or artists, or interior designers and see what they thought as well. So, I did get them done, and it helped me go, "You know what, when I get the final one done, I'm going to tweak this, and I'm going to tweak that." So, that's what I did, but not everybody does do that.

Ian Paget: Yeah. So, it sounds like you actually designed it all, created everything, used a little bit of money to get real samples made up. And I like what you did reaching out to potential people for feedback. Do you mind going into that a little bit more, because I think that's quite an important thing with any product that you don't just make what you want, it's good to get feedback from others? So, could you share a little bit about that as well?

Andy Brown: Yeah. So, I sent a bunch of these packs of cards out to different people and then I created a questionnaire just on Google Forms, I think, and asked people to take a look at that when they got the chance, once they'd played around with the cards for a bit. And I asked them questions, just what their first impression was? Would they find it helpful in their sort of work? But also, if these were for sale, how much do you think they should be? And things like that. And that was super helpful, and some people were like, "Oh, that's great. I really love that." And other people were just like, "No, I don't imagine I'll use those." And that was designers too. And it made me realise... and I know this is obvious, but people work in different ways, and that's okay.

So, I think putting out good questions and understanding that not everyone's going to like it, and that's totally fine, and also try and understand who they are in relation to you. So, if they're your best mate, then they're going to give you the most positive feedback. And so just try and understand that because I think there's one layer of understanding their answers, and then there's a second layer of going, "Okay, so why are they saying that? Are they saying this to encourage me or is this what they think in this area or whatever?" So, what I'm saying really is, don't just read the answers as they are, have a real proper think about what they're saying because there's sometimes another layer under what they're saying.

Ian Paget: And was there any of the feedback that really helped to make a difference with the product?

Andy Brown: I think where it probably helped was probably in the pricing was probably the most helpful, I think because I'm a bit tight. I think people were, I think, valuing the product higher than I thought they would, which was really positive, but at the same time, it varied depending on what sort of work they did. So, if they were really familiar with Pantone swatch books, they understood the value of having a good selection of colours, whereas people who are outside of that world didn't value it so much, and that's totally fine. But I think that helped me understand the value in that.

And also, one bit of feedback that I received, I think this was actually just before I got them printed, was to number the cards. And I know that might sound really obvious, but I was quite keen for them almost to not be numbered so you could jumble them up and not worry about it, but this person said, "I really want to keep them in a nice order." I was like, "Yeah, that's very true." And so they're all numbered now. And so once you've spread them out on your desk, and chosen cards, you can put them back together in the same order.

Ian Paget: I don't envy anyone with OCD. But yeah, I think it's a good bit of feedback, though, because you might want to fan out the colours. With the Pantone swatch books, they are the stuck together, and you can fan them out, and they are in some logical order. So, if you want a blue, and you want a lighter blue or a darker blue, you know that you need to find it one way or the other. I know you can put them in some kind of order just by looking at the front of the colour, but actually having a number on there is actually something that makes a lot of sense. So, I think that was a good call to add on that.

Andy Brown: And that was another bit of feedback, because when I got them printed, because they were all on screen, they were never all together because they were all in InDesign and are scrolling through them to look at them all, and there was some logic to the order of the cards. But then when I received them back from the printers, I was like, "I haven't even done them by groups of colour." So, the blues weren't together. There was like light blues in one group and then they were mid tone blues in another group, and then dark blue somewhere else. And I only realised that once, so I held them in my hands and I was like, "That's just so stupid. That doesn't make any sense at all." And I asked people about that, and they were like, "Yeah, absolutely, it needs to be in that order." And so that was a helpful thing as well, realising. And then that's something you only figure out when it's in your hand, or at least I did.

Ian Paget: Cool. So, in terms of your goal, you hit your goal in two days, right? You very quickly hit your goal.

Andy Brown: Yeah. I think it was just in 24 hours, actually.

Ian Paget: Wow, 24 hours. That's amazing. Congratulations.

Andy Brown: Thank you.

Ian Paget: I haven't checked it today, but I checked it yesterday, and you pretty much doubled your goal already and you're not even halfway through the campaign at the point of recording this interview. So, I wish you every success raising more funds and everything. I think it's amazing what you've done already, and this idea that you came up with is now actually going to be a real thing that people can find.

So, you was able to do that in 24 hours, which is incredibly successful, and you kind of mentioned earlier in this conversation that you reached out to people that had purchased a product that you've already released, and we can talk about that later in the conversation as well. But what else did you do to have that level of success so quickly?

Andy Brown: I've done quite a lot of research beforehand, so things like what prices are popular? What sort of rewards are popular? And so a lot of reading of advice, and looking at other people's projects, and going, "How's that worked? How's that ordered on the page?" And just thinking that all through. I think, ultimately, you need a decent product, and I think it helps that it's bright and colourful. It looks nice in photos. That helps as well.

But I think ultimately, having a pile of previous customers really helps. That helps it to get started and also, it got started very quickly with early bird offers and things like that, so there's a discount on the first, I think it was 50 orders. And so that helps you get a good start, and then people look at it and go, "Oh, that's already backed to this amount. That seems like that's going to get funded. I'm happy to kind of chip in as well." So, that was my method.

And I prepared a lot. So, I pre-wrote email newsletters, or email campaigns, and all my social media, and cued it up in Buffer. So, there was a lot of things that I'd already done ready to just go. So, I prepared as much as I could, and probably, I could have done a better job, but I did what I could manage and went for it, and it seemed to go okay.

Ian Paget: Yeah. And you need to remember that you're one person, you're not a whole team, and I'm sure you've got other stuff on the go, and a life and all this sort of stuff. So, I think what you did initially was amazing and someone can replicate that.

How I found about it... I don't know if you know, Col Gray based up in Scotland.

Andy Brown: Yeah.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Col shared it in the Logo Geek community, and he shared it in the Resource for Designer community, and I think that's probably helped with a few of those sales as well, because graphic designers need it. And I noticed immediately, I mean, firstly, great images, that obviously makes a big difference, but it's actually a helpful product. I looked at and I thought, like I said, "That's pretty cool. I can actually just play around with colours. I can sit down on the floor and pick colours out. And if my little daughter wants to come over and help me with it, she's welcome to."

It just seems quite a fun way of creating a colour palette. And even though it seems like such an obvious idea, just cards with colours on there, I don't have anything like that in my toolkit, and it's a reasonable price, it's a nice idea, and I just thought it was very much an impulse buy. I saw it and thought, "That's cool. I'll buy that." So, I can imagine that other people thought exactly the same way.

Andy Brown: Yeah. No, that's good.

Ian Paget: Okay. So, once the project is funded, I know we're a few weeks away. We're recording this probably about two weeks before we actually release this publicly, so there should still be a few weeks left to the actual campaign. But once you've got it funded, which you will, you've already doubled that, and I think you'll probably double that again by the time the campaign closes, what happens next?

Andy Brown: So, I have a bit of a schedule kind of planned and communicating that to people is really important so they know what to expect next. So, even at the moment, I've received a few questions about, "What's the plan with this? What sort of material are you printing on?" And things like that. And so taking all of that into consideration. So, my first step is going to be updating the design, and potentially that will start sooner than the end of the campaign, but updating it to kind of incorporate the thoughts of other people, that will be my first step. And through all of that, I'll be keeping in touch with backers so they know where things are up to. But a lot of the legwork is already done for that.

And then it's checking it over. I mean, checking the colours, as you can imagine, is quite a pain but is obviously a very important process of making sure all the colours are actually what it says. So, I check it multiple times to make sure everything's correct, and different methods to check it as well, so just make sure it's 100% right. And then it'll go off to the printers. And then probably a few weeks later, we'll come back, box them all up, and send them out to the backers.

Ian Paget: So, you're doing that all on your own?

Andy Brown: Yes. Yeah.

Ian Paget: That's going to be a lot of work.

Andy Brown: It is. I mean, me and my wife, we kind of manage the posting out of products I sell now, so it helps having that all up and running already, so knowing the systems and knowing how things get sent really helps. So, that's not another thing to learn, because there's a lot of learning involved in doing a Kickstarter project, but that bit, I'm okay with. But yes, it is going to be a few days, I would imagine, packing boxes.

Ian Paget: Yeah. But I think it'd be worth it, it'd be exciting, and you can at least schedule in the time now because you have an idea of... Well, for starters, you know that it's definitely going to happen so you can plan well ahead.

Andy Brown: Yeah. And it's quite nice doing jobs like that, because I think as designers, you're using your brain so much all the time and sometimes packing up boxes, I just love it because it just gives my brain a bit of a break and I just get to do something whilst listening to a podcast or something. So, yeah, it's quite a nice job every now and again.

Ian Paget: Yeah. And I take it you've needed to order up a whole load, or you will need to order out like a whole load of boxes, and print out loads of labels, and all that sort of stuff as well.

Andy Brown: All that sort of stuff. Yep.

Ian Paget: Turning into a real business. And I assume, I'm making assumptions here, but I assume after the campaign is closed, you'll continue to be selling these through some kind of website in the same way that you are with the booklets, you mentioned.

Andy Brown: Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, you'll be able to go on to swatchos.com and pick them up there as well once everything's finished.

Ian Paget: Very nice.

Andy Brown: Yeah. And this is another thing where I think Kickstarter works really well is I found that people, they give good feedback and they want you to succeed as well, because they see a project they're really keen on, and so they want you to succeed and are happy to give feedback on things.

So, for example, someone got in touch and said, "If I lose a card, will I be able to get a replacement?" And I was like, "I've not even thought about that." But that's really easy for me to set up my end, and so I was like, "Yeah, that's not a problem." And also thinking that through, I was like, "That also means you could send a client a selection of cards."

Ian Paget: Like a sample.

Andy Brown: Yeah. And you could say, "This is what we're thinking for your project. Send them to the client if you're working remotely." And they can see the selection you've chosen, and they can go, "Yeah, that's good. Could we make that a bit darker or whatever?" And so that might be something I add as well. Certainly, you'll be able to get replacement cards and things.

Ian Paget: Yeah. It's even more of a reason to have them numbered, isn't it? So, that you can go on... I mean, you should probably do something like order up one card, order up 10 cards, so that people can pick the ones that they want to order up and it'd be easy to say how much it cost and all that sort of stuff. It's a great idea. I really like it.

Andy Brown: Yeah.

Ian Paget: So, we've got maybe 10, 15 minutes left now, and through this conversation, you have briefly kind of mentioned something else that you've done in the past, which is the print handbook. And I read that was something that you did 10 years ago, and you've got two version, and it run through the newest print techniques for litho and digital. I know that this is an audio podcast, so it's hard to show things, but would you mind maybe telling us a little bit more about what those books are, but also sharing some of those techniques that are in those books as well, because that's not something I've ever discussed on this podcast?

Andy Brown: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, like you say, there's two books. One that kind of showcases traditional offset or litho printing, it's called different things, but it's the most common kind of commercial printing. And then the other book is a more recent edition, which focuses on digital printing, which is very good at low quantities and has some interesting technologies in.

The books kind of have two focuses. One is to show designers how to get the results they want. So, there is a big colour chart in there so you can pick a colour, if you're just looking for one colour, that's possible, so you can do that, but also what colours look like on different sorts of paper. So, stuff like that is in the book. But then also, like you said, it explores some of the things that you might not think to do that the technology offers that maybe you weren't taught about when you studied design or as you've kind of developed as a designer. So, the books have those kind of focuses.

In terms of a couple of techniques that I'd say are really interesting and that maybe don't get used as much as I think they should do, in terms of the offset or litho printing, although this actually applies to digital as well, there's a way of saving files as one colour bitmaps. Now, I know this is getting a bit technical, but ultimately, the images, you can save them out in Photoshop, and they are in pixels basically, black or they're white, and there's no grey, no colour, they're black or white. And so you'd think that's an awful idea. There's nothing in that.

But what's possible with those is you can save files like that for print at 1,200 DPI, and sometimes higher. So, they're super, super detailed. So, that means that if you're trying to replicate someone's drawing, like a black and white line drawing, you can just get phenomenal detail in the drawing. So, just the finest of lines can be replicated. And when you see it, you go, "Yeah, I didn't realise that most of the time it's not like that, but you can create this really lovely detail." It comes out like a vector because it looks so detailed. So, that's a really interesting thing I've explored in one of the books.

The other thing that I think is worth knowing about is with digital printing, and like I said, digital printing is far lower quantities of kind of printed items, and it doesn't use printing plates. So, that ultimately means that each item or each page, for example, can be completely different to the previous one because it generates kind of the image each time. So, that means that you can create bespoke things where maybe you're using a customer's name and you're dropping that in, but you can also do nice creative things. So, the cover of the Digital Print Handbook, each one... so I have 5,000 of those printed, each one is unique. So, each one is numbered one to 5,000 and uses the number as a pattern.

So, if you imagine 27 and then it's like duplicated and rotated, it kind of creates this nice kind of interlocking shape, and then that's replicated across the whole cover. But each number for each book is different, so the pattern changes each time. Now, it did mean creating 5,000 PDFs, but it means that everyone is unique, and so every person who receives a Print Handbook like that has a completely unique one. I mean, I love kind of digging through the boxes of them and going, "That one's turned out really nice, and that one's a completely different style." So, you can do some really clever things like that and illustrate... so those covers were created in Illustrator, and Illustrator has the ability to work with... So, basically, I linked up Illustrator with a spreadsheet, and there's a variables panel, and it outputs all these PDFs. So, with a little bit of kind of getting your head into it, you can create some really clever things.

Ian Paget: They sound really useful, and one of the reasons why I wanted to mention it is because it's one of the kind of extra bonus things on the Kickstarter you had, and I kind of regret not getting one of everything because they sound like they would be really useful little books.

Because there was about five years of my career when I first started out where I did most of the print based stuff, so we did some really interesting things, but that was over 10 years ago, and then things change, and I would probably benefit from reading those, so I might go on your website and order up a couple of those myself. But what I'll do in the show notes for this episode, I'll link to those as well for anyone who wants to go and check them out. They're relatively cheap. I think they were... I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, I think they were like £9 each.

Andy Brown: That's right, yeah.

Ian Paget: Yeah, they're relatively cheap, and you've added them on the Kickstarter as well. For anyone that's listening to this now while the campaign is till open, you can get those as part of that as well.

So, I'm going to fire one last question at you, and this will kind of the last one to wrap things up, and it's a little bit a fun one. So, imagine if you strapped up and you got inside a time machine, and you could go back to any point in your career, it could have been last week, it could have been when you as a kid. But if you could go back just for a short moment and give yourself one piece of advice, what would that advice be?

Andy Brown: Okay. So, I think the one piece of advice I'd give myself, I'd probably go back to when I just finished university, and I had my first design job, and I was working for a charity, and they were producing literature for HIV and AIDS education in Africa. So, really great charity doing fantastic stuff, and I was one of their in-house designers. And I designed some pull up banners for an event, and I think there were maybe 10 pull up banners, and it was to do with small businesses in Africa. And so at the top of each banner was the word, entrepreneur. So, my thing would be to go back in time and tell myself to spellcheck those banners, because I had spelt entrepreneur wrong, and it was about 300 point size text, and they'd all got printed. And it was only when they all got printed that we realised I'd spelt it wrong. And so I'd go back and say, "You need to spell check that and make sure that's right."

But ultimately, probably, if I hadn't have made that mistake, I would have made a mistake at another point where I hadn't spell checked something, because when you make a mistake like that, you to really learn from it, because I felt so bad.

Ian Paget: I remember the first piece of proper printed artwork I did, it wasn't a spelling mistake, but there was a slight error with the artwork. And this was when I was working in QuarkXPress. So, to be fair to me, the preview wasn't high resolution, so you couldn't see all of the artwork, but if I opened up in Photoshop, there was this tiny little shape in there, and every time I see that leaflet, it bugs the hell out of me today that there is this three millimetre little bit. So, proofread your work, check over it properly. And I totally understand why with these cards, you want to check every single colour like 10 times so that you don't accidentally have a pink card that has blue colour codes on.

Andy Brown: Absolutely, yeah. And also, the thing is, if you're a new designer, you'll hear this and go, "Ah, no, I'll be fine," and then you'll make a mistake, and then you'll learn anyway, so it's fine.

Ian Paget: Yeah. And you know what, every time I've got something printed... In one of my early jobs, we used to do these really thick brochures, and because it was an in house team, you'd get like, I'd proofread it, you get your manager to proofread it, you get someone else to proofread it. We even had some of the bigger, really thick, chunky catalogs checked over by everyone in the office, and we did like a competition for anyone that could find a spelling mistake. But the moment they get printed and someone looks at it in a different way, we've actually done that, had every single person check it, someone opened up the first page they found, they found a mistake. So, you have to really check over everything and take responsibility for using spell check and just read everything.

I read everything backwards now, so when I'm really spell checking, I will read every individual word backwards, because I skip over words because I think they're correct, and actually, it's the smaller ones that you don't think are going to be wrong that are actually wrong, so yeah, I take that extra precaution.

Well, Andy, this has been fantastic. Thank you for sharing your Kickstarter journey with us. Hopefully, it might have inspired someone that's listening to create a product of their own that solves a problem for someone else. And I also think when you're a graphic designer, it's good to look at alternative revenue streams, so hopefully, you sparked someone's imagination. And of course, I wish you all the best of luck with the campaign. As at the time of recording this, you're only like a week or two into the actual campaign, so I hope it all goes well and hope the final launch and release of the product actually goes very well. So, thanks so much for coming on and sharing that with us.

Andy Brown: Thank you so much for having me. And I would encourage anyone who's thinking about doing a Kickstarter campaign, give it a go because it's a learning experience, and I think that's great. But thank you very much for having me. It's been great.