The Facility Group provides professional Program Management, Engineering, Architecture and Construction Management services, and is recognized internationally for its ability to deliver quality projects on time and within the established budget.

The Facility Group has developed into a full-service international firm of more than 300 professionals and has annual average revenues that exceed $250 million. The company currently manages more than $700 million in projects. The Facility Group is consistently ranked among Engineering News Records (ENR) national list of "Top 100 Design Build Firms," "Top 500 Design Firms," and "Top 400 Contractors." The Facility Group provides its comprehensive specialized services to niche markets including distribution, food, industrial, commercial and recreational, criminal justice, and education.

Ingrid Robinson is on the Marketing Team at The Facility Group. She has been in the graphic design and marketing field for 15 years. Ingrid holds a BFA degree from the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga.

Ingrid, as a member of The Facility Group’s marketing team, what exactly does your job involve?

I work to develop and create brochures, proposal materials, multi-media presentations, trade show graphics and corporate I.D. materials. We do a lot of our own printing in-house utilizing two color copiers. We print an average of 15,000 color copies per month in-house.

At what point do you decide to use an outside vendor for your color work?

We are limited to 11x17 maximum size. Anything that needs to be larger, printed on custom stock, printed more than four colors, or needing a varnish, die-cut or scoring, is sent to outside vendors. In addition we consider any one project over 300 copies to be a large enough job to send to an outside vendor. Especially if it needs to be folded or cut.

What about your design work? What abilities do you have in-house?

We are quite capable of designing top of the line graphics. There is one other designer here, and the two of us are responsible for the majority of the marketing materials utilized by our entire company. We use the PC operating system, and the latest versions of graphics software. Both of us are very knowledgeable in PhotoShop, Illustrator, PageMaker, Corel, QuarkXPress, PowerPoint and are branching out into more multimedia software for our web and presentations such as Flash and Director.

As part of a team, I assume others are responsible for working with print related vendors. Is that right?

Yes, several people purchase printing, myself, one other graphic designer and two other Marketing Managers. We are each allowed to use vendors that we are familiar with whether we knew them before coming to Facility Group or after. It is to our discretion. However, we do ask for quotes from 2-3 vendors on outsourced print jobs.

What lessons have you learned over the years that you can share with our print buying members?

Lessons learned PREFLIGHT, PREFLIGHT, PREFLIGHT! Check and double check everything before you send a job out. It may make the process of sending the job out take a little longer, however, I guarantee it will save you time, money and headaches in the long run.

What process do you use to preflight?

Include everything. When I am prepping files to go out, I organize the graphics and text in folders on the zip disk, such as fonts, art, logos, and text. Each type of item has it's own folder. Then I go one step further by opening the document after it has been saved to the zip drive and re-linking all the images to the file, from their new zip disk location. It's a good way of double checking your materials before they leave your hands.

What about proofing?

Proof read everything, print it out turn it upside down and proof it. Have someone else in your department proof it. Often if we as designers look at something over a period of time, we know what it is suppose to look like, or say, but a fresh pair of eyes can almost always catch typos and other errors.

Have you segmented your vendors into areas they specialize in?

I currently use about 4 vendors. One for all of my corporate I.D. materials, one for basic forms, one for photographs and film, and one for large trade show graphics. Each of these vendors have their niche that they are good at, and that is what I go to them for. I found most of them through personal references of other employees or simply by them cold calling on us.

Some print buyers have said that printers get too comfortable sometimes and think they have the business “locked up.” What do you do to keep a balance?

I have to have faith in my vendors. I often face tight deadlines and I need to know that the vendor I will be utilizing can handle the added pressure from me. I can pick up the phone and call any of my vendors and ask them questions about, my jobs, or other print related questions such as; what type of paper works best with varnishes and coatings, which papers will compliment metallic inks, etc. It is a win, win relationship for all of us. They know that if they give me a good product and good service that I will keep sending them my business. But most importantly they all know that if they don't give me excellent products, great service, and fair prices, that I will take my business elsewhere.

Do you have any examples of leaving a vendor?

Yes, I have stopped using vendors before. What led to it was a steady decline in their service and quality of product as well as price gauging. I gave them several opportunities to remedy the situation. When they did not, I pulled all of my work - and it was a lot - from them and took it to a printer that I have used for the past few years, who was previously just doing large 6 color jobs for me. Now he does 80% of my work.

Some print companies offer web based print stores where you can order online and access prepress tools. Would you consider this service and would they need to be a local vendor?

We prefer to keep our business local, so that we can actually be “hands on” if we need to be. We do not like the idea of utilizing vendors over the web whom we have never met, and who are not located in our general area. However, we are open to ordering on line with local vendors that we do know.

Thank you Ingrid. Best of luck in the future.