(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the art of layout and typesetting and, more particularly, to a computerized method and system of automated layout and typesetting for the production of engraved, embossed, and lithographed materials, such as stationery, envelopes, paper, and business cards.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Since the early days of the commercial printing industry, and continuing through present day, the production of professionally printed goods-such as engraved, embossed, and lithographed stationery, envelopes, paper, business cards, and the like-has required extensive, time-consuming human design, layout, and typesetting expertise, proofing, and supervision. Today's commercial printing industry, however, requires even more time and attention to detail, as corporations invest millions of dollars developing highly-detailed corporate identities. Engraved, embossed, and lithographed stationery, envelopes, paper, business cards, and other goods are an integral part of a company's corporate identity campaign, and a major business expense. It is crucial that commercial printing technology advance in parallel to more effectively and efficiently handle the increasing industry demand.
Traditionally, a high level of human interaction in the production process has been required to ensure the final product satisfies high-detailed corporate identity specifications. Corporate identity specifications include customer-specific details including, among other things, font type, font size, precise font colors, logo size, logo placement, precise logo color, precise positioning measurements, character kerning and leading, and the like. Companies often publish extensive corporate identification manuals providing detailed guidelines governing the proper appearance of a company's corporate identity. Therefore, many time-consuming steps are required to produce an acceptable and accurate final product. It has therefore become necessary to dedicate considerable time and expense for obtaining experts in the art of layout, typesetting, proofing, and production. With such an increase in detail and required supervision, overhead, and ultimately consumer cost, have necessarily risen.
Under traditional prior art production systems, orders for printed products were typically placed via fax machine, in often-difficult-to-read hand-written format. An order would typically include the customer's name and internal identification number, identification of the goods being ordered (i.e., business cards), the quantity being ordered, the information to appear on the ordered goods (i.e., name, title, address, phone and fax numbers), and billing and shipping information. The orders would be gathered together at regular intervals throughout the day and manually keystroked into an order processing system to produce an order summary ticket. The orders would then be directed to typesetting experts for typesetting scheduling.
Typically, orders would be scheduled for typesetting within a day or two after receipt, depending on backlog. The typesetting expert would review the order, keystroke the information from the order into the proper customer template (a template contains a customer's specific product layout information based on the customer's corporate identity specifications), manually adjust fonts, sizing, kerning, colors, and the like where necessary, and print out the draft typeset order for a proofreader's review. The proofreader would then isolate any typographical errors or formatting changes required by the customer's corporate identity specifications, and send those changes back to the typesetter for corrections. The typesetter would then manually correct the order. Once the corrections were made, the order would again be printed and reviewed a second time by the proofreader. If the proofreader determined that all of the customer's corporate identity specifications had been met and no typographical errors existed, the order was transmitted to the customer for approval.
Often times, after customer review, changes would need to be made due to poor fax quality, or because the typesetter or proofchecker overlooked an error. This time-consuming typesetting and proofing cycle was repeated until the order was approved by the customer and no further changes were required. Once the final approval was received, the order would be sent on to the printing department for preparation of the production plate or film. At its fastest, the entire process would typically take a minimum of three business days, and if further information was changed by the customer during the approval process, it would take even longer. Therefore, preparation of a single engraved business card order under using traditional prior art methods, for example, from receipt of order to creation of engraving production plate, may have taken anywhere from 3 to 5 days, or longer, with multiple and repeated levels of detailed, human proofing, and therefore, high overhead and increased consumer cost.
In addition to increased overhead and consumer cost, the extensive and repeated human supervision required under traditional prior art systems introduced multiple opportunities for error. Therefore, the inherent faults of prior art systems for receiving, processing, typesetting, and printing commercial engraved, embossed, and lithographed materials create a substantial demand for an automated typesetting system to increase efficiency, accuracy, and productivity, while decreasing production time, errors, and costs.