Gish, Sherwood & Friends (GS&F) is an agency that's equally marketing and creative driven. That's because their two principals represent both sides of the advertising equation. The synergy that comes from a dual perspective on a common goal makes for a unique and invaluable resource for clients. A fresh view leads to fresh ideas and new avenues of business opportunity. That's what GS&F has been all about for 23 years.

Pat Lee is the Senior Production Manager at Gish, Sherwood & Friends. She started out in the business 21 years ago at an engraving company as CSR. Pat was offered a Production Manager position by one of the company’s clients and moved up to Senior Production Manager. She has been buying print for 7 years.




Our research indicate declines in the ad agency segment in terms of general print and media spend.

Our business has been hit pretty hard this year. Clients have cut their budgets drastically. All of the local printers have been laying off and we have had printers coming from everywhere looking for work from us. There are 5 production managers here and we all maintain our own accounts so we send a lot of business to the printers around here.

Do you have a good set of vendors for print?

They do what it takes to accommodate us and our clients. We all work as a team. They get an honest deadline up front. If they need a little more time, they call and ask for it and we pass the information along to the client. We had a client that needed 8 pieces of literature printed within 2 days. All were 4 pagers, 4/c plus aq coating shrinked in 50's and delivered to the client. I received the call on Wednesday afternoon, the engraver had film on all by Thursday at noon. We ran all night Thursday night and Friday morning and delivered them all on Friday by 4:00 pm. It was a couple of long hard nights for us all but together we all did what was needed.

What’s your take on press-checks?

I would encourage the pressmen to interact more with the client on press checks. I have gone on a check where the press man would not speak or offer any suggestions to get the color correct. I have also gone to checks where the pressman did not look at the sheet for register or trash. They waited for me to point out the problems. I expect them to do their job as if they were paying for the run.

Does your company spec paper or is that left to the client or printer?

Paper is a very critical part of the process. A beautiful design on a cheap sheet defeats the purpose and can lessen the entire project as equally as a lousy print job on a premium sheet. We spec our own stock here but if our printer has a better suggestion we do listen, However I do not want to be sold on a stock simply because it is the printers house stock.

With five production managers, you must get bombarded by sales calls. How do you prefer to be “called on” and give us a recent example.

(The last) sales rep called for an appointment, brought me samples of their work and when I get something that I would like to try them out on, I will keep them in mind and try them. I do not like them calling on me every week but I would like them to stay in touch. Out-of-site-out-of-mind you know.

We did a recent survey about print buyers keeping track of new print technologies. Do you track capability specialties of each vendor?

We certainly keep track of the different expertise. That is my job. The final project speaks for itself and their work should also.