Our newsletter this past January kicked off our 10th anniversary celebration by including what we’ve learned. We learned a lot and this series will explain each in more depth.

Always Make Time for Proofing and Testing

When a client needs something in a rush from us we always manage to make it work. It’s not a regular habit, but things get forgotten or come up last minute. It can be a little stressful as both sides drop other things and rush to get it done. But, no matter how rushed, you must make time for proofing and testing.

It Doesn’t Take Long

Most forms of quality control don’t take as long as you may think. Run spell-check one last time, print it out to review more closely, test every single link in the email or website, download the things and look at them. Unless we’re talking about a multi-page book or huge website, these things really only take a couple of minutes. If you find something you’ll be grateful, if you don’t you’ll be more relaxed.

Have Someone Else Look

Whether it’s copy writing or design, when you’ve been working hard on something you are the most likely to miss a mistake. You know what you intended, you think it should be right so maybe you just don’t see it. I know – as a designer – that we start seeing type as a page element early and are much more likely to miss a typo. A fresh set of eyes is very necessary.

A Little Paranoia Isn’t a Bad Thing

We put a rather detailed procedure in place for quality assurance and every time there’s been a problem it’s because some part of it wasn’t followed. Every time I’ve ignored a gut feeling it came back to haunt me. I have, occasionally been over cautious for no reason, but I’ve never had a client be mad at me for delaying something that would have otherwise gone out wrong.