Brochure Design - can I request in TIFF format?

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TheQuery

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Hi,
We got some brochures deigned and printed from a company a couple of years ago.
We never requested a soft copy of the brochure design. I recently requested a copy of the brochure in TIFF format but I was declined.
Company stated that they don't release their work and that this is "standard design procedures and ethics" Can anyone confirm if I'm entitled to request a TIFF version of the brochure?

Thanks
 
It depends on any terms and conditions in any contracts or agreements you might have signed probably.

It seems bad form for them not to give it to you. Any design companies I worked for in the past would usually give a 'flattened' copy of brochures to the client. That way the client could get reprinted but couldn't, for example, bring the files to another company to change the text etc. As a company owner myself i would have no problems giving clients files.

Most places seem to take the view that they don't have to give out 'work' files (which can be altered) but can release flattened versions in pdf, or tiff if that is what you need.
 
paddi22 said:
It depends on any terms and conditions in any contracts or agreements you might have signed probably.
Click to expand...

This is it probably. I agree with Paddi though - it seems bad form not to provide something. Any design company I've worked with for the last number of years has never declined.
 
Thanks for the replies.
The brochure was designed and printed before my time with the company. As far as I'm aware it was an informal arrangement so there's unlikely to be a contract in place. I need the TIFF format so I can add a few more images to the brochure and then get it printed more competitively elsewhere. I would have assumed if you pay for the design then you should be entitled to claim ownership of the resulting work.
 
TheQuery said:
I would have assumed if you pay for the design then you should be entitled to claim ownership of the resulting work.
Click to expand...

A common mis-perception. In the absence of a written (signed) agreement transferring copyright, ownership rests with the author, regardless of who pays the bill. Agree it's bad form, but I'd say they are not lying to you when they say that it's standard practice.
 
What form do you have it in? If you have .pdf format, you can edit this with a full edition of Adobe Acrobat.
 
Looks like I can get my hands on a PDF version for a fee. I think this is a tad cheeky to say the least. We paid this company €20,000 for a 10,000 36 page brochures only a couple of years ago. I don't believe a fee to release a PDF version is reasonable.
 
I thought you can lock PDF's from editing in adobe acrobat so you'd have to buy something to crack the PDF.

Paying for updates And revisions to content is sizable revenue stream. I could see why they wouldn't just give that away. If it's too expensive clients will just want to do of themselves. Assuming they have resources free to do it.

Of course they've lost your business as soon As you get a soft copy so this is their last chance to get money from you.
 
Of course they know you won't be going back if you want a soft copy so it's their last chance to get money from this account.
 
72 dpi is too low. If you need it for printing purposes you need it high resolution. Should be 300 dpi for printing.
 
Eventually got my hands on a high resolution version of the PDF file. I have two queries;
1. How do I check the resolution of the file?
2. I now need to make a few changes before getting it printed. I installed the trial version of Adobe Acrobat Pro but I'm now getting the error 'No available system font' when I attempt to edit text. Does anyone know if it's possible to edit text in a PDF without having the original fonts?
Thanks.
 
AFAIK no if the font is not embedded. You can substitute a font but it will change the formatting/layout. Make a dogs dinner of the whole thing. if you didn't know anything about this, do you know anything about preparing things for print?
 
Unfortunately the font is embedded. I tried to substitute the font for a locally installed one but got the following error "chosen font and font encodings in the document differ and couldn't be resolved".
I'm a novice on printing to be honest. I was hoping it wouldn't be too difficult to edit a PDF file but I obviously under estimated the task!
 
You need to use Adobe Illustrator to open the pdf file and make any changes. The brochure was more than likely created with Illustrator in the first place as you need high qulaity output for print. If you don't have the font installed on your pc or if it is not on the trial download of Illustrator, when you open the file it will substitute a font for you.
You can downlaod a trial of Illustrator from the adobe site
 
Been a long time since I did printing but aren't PDFs, fonts and illustrator files resolution or quality independent. They are all vectors. The only thing that isn't is the photos which you link to the full resolution files? We used to use quark for layout and illustrator was only used for doing vector graphics. Or one or two pages things like posters and the like. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong.
 
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