Problems with Printing

Or: Leave it to an expert, because amateurs make mistakes.

I’m formalizing a freelance business for data analysis. It’s part market research (what do companies need? what are companies currently doing?), partly networking (can I get a job?), and partly for revenue purposes (rent/student loans).

I’ve been doing some freelance web development for some time, but I don’t think I’m enjoy a career in it. I like many of the technical components – and have gotten rather good at HTML/CSS/JS + PHP – but my original interest has always been in knowledge-building (my major in Epistemology, etc).

So: I did the first thing any self-respecting freelancer with too much time on their hands does – I designed a business card.

It was meant to look like this:

Unfortunately, it seems that when I changed all of the colors from RGB mode to CMYK mode, I missed one. Which one?

Only the most important one:

Yes, the back of the card has been rendered unreadable because there is no close CMYK match to the RGB color I used. While it was meant to match the website – not yet finished – instead it’s an unreadable mess.

Is there a lesson to this?

Probably: experts matter, because they can catch mistakes; printing is hard; and you should test multiple times in small batches before committing a large order.

All things I thought I knew. Just not well enough, apparently.