Print Catalogue Proofing Best Practices

Hi Pam, 

Oh the joys of the multi-page document proof. So many moving parts... 😉

What I have done in the past, is break the document into sections and have the sections reviewed and approved separately (ads sent to buyers, articles sent to content teams, product pages go to specific product teams, etc.). This helps to keep those individual approvals organized in your Documents section of the project. Once all sections are approved, your Production/Studio Team should know how to package it all for the printer and send out the file. In the old days we called this "Painting the Wall" and would post up all the pages in sections in a conference room and invite these teams to come and make comments, mark ups and approvals. Although in the digital age, a benefit of the sections is you could get approvals when the sections are done, not when the entire catalog is. i.e. Product Section A is completed 2 weeks earlier while ads are still waiting to come in. Helps to keep things moving. 

Another option that I've seen and relies heavily on a well built process workflow is creating a Proof Approval Workflow with multiple stages for the entire document. When building this, keep in mind who needs to review first, second, ... last. You'll also need to outline what happens when a stage is Rejected. Does it come back, will it continue, etc. Each stage should have an owner and they should know what sections they review. The stages would track the approvals and by who. One issue that can come up with this, is the ambiguous question/comment directed at no one. With this in mind, you may want to also designate a Moderator for the Proof. This individual would run down answers for those odd questions. 

I hope some of this helps. Ultimately, a lot depends on your current processes, how often are you waiting on others for materials (i.e. ads, product info, cover art, etc). 

Best,

Joaquin