Background information: After finishing editing the art books, I sent the PDF to a printing factory in China. The first batch has 50 copies in total and we have shipped 10 copies to London for us to see.
Problem
I faced my biggest problem during this placement after the first batch of books had arrived, where it had many major and minor printing problems such as: the cover cut out being upside down, transparent PNG printing issues, unclear text, extra pages that were not required, images colours are different etc.
Despite the factory’s printing issues, I’ve had my own problem of sending the PDF with missing pages, and not communicating enough with the factories on details.
Solution
However, after communicating with my boss, we do think that although I’ve made my mistakes, the factory still has the majority of the responsibility over this issue. She will be satisfied if I can be proactive and resolve the issue, which is convincing them for a full refund. Therefore, we will be moving forward with a new trusted factory. We have also discussed our internal communications, where the roles of which one of us communicating which part has not been very clear. As my boss has asked me to continue this job as a part-time job after DPS, we will be discussing this further, adjusting and adapting throughout time.
During that couple of days, I have been overcoming and reflecting on my own unprofessional mistakes while initiating communication with the factory by listing out all the printing errors. During this experience, I have learnt to be strategic during communication in the text along with many things to avoid when getting in tough with factories next time. At the end, I have successfully got a full refund from the factory.
New factory
With no time to rest, as we are already behind with the time. I have a call and start contacting the new trusted factory, clearly articulating our demands in detail. While the workers presented very professionally with different suggestions based on our budget and demand. Where budget is a very important thing when it comes to working for someone, and I need to gain the best price mark possible.
At the same time, we have listed out some editing problems that I will be fixing. Therefore, I will be doing that for the next period of time, while sending it back and forth with my boss.
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