im in the process of putting my portfolio together and im looking to use an online publisher like lulu. after searching i found a thread created in 2006 talking about formatting issues and quality of the finished piece. its now two years later and im wondering what people's opinions are now of lulu [or would you recommend an alternative?] - of their paper and ink quality, formatting issues, etc. have things changed in two years, what are people using these days to print their portfolios?
in my only experience with lulu, the quality of the print was decent, but the finished product had a completely different format than what was submitted.
im in the middle of doing this now as well. a little more expensive but that site looks pretty good surfaces, have you used them before? if so can i take your recommendation here that you were happy?
In the office I work at used we LULU like three of times and I can say that the results are not consistent if you are doing full color.
For one the paper is crappy and the printers they use are basically laser color. The color was off in like 20 pages of a publication of 100 pages and in one publication some pages came out f'ed up with weird print marks. LULU does not really have a quality control so I would definitely NOT recommend it for a portfolio you plan to take to interviews, but works well as a mockup to see were you are at.
2nd complex on lulu. i did a test portfolio and it ended up looking like a laser printer w/ the coated semi-gloss laser color paper. colors were grainy and inconsistent. looked about the same as a kinko's color laser job chopped and stapled. not really worth it.
looked at blurb but i hated the fact that blurb needs you to use their software to lay things out. admittedly you can do it all before hand and drop in already done pages as raster images but i don't like that. it just shows that the customer base is geared more towards hobbyists than professionals...
the office i'm at currently sent out to a local bookbinder after printing at a local printshop and it came out great, but takes more effort for what you get.
good point about the software ACfA, i assumed i could just drop pdf's in there but it does seem like a lot of extra work, not to mention i've already started laying out everything in A4 format, which of course they don't offer. looks like i'll be printing it myself.
I recently used lulu for a large order (400+ books). Overall, I was pleased. I didn't fall in love with the final product but they produced a good print at a great price.
I did see many color inconsistencies with the color grey although I used the same swatch each time.
As n_ points out, large orders is when LULU is a great benefit b/c of the low cost.
Out of experience if you are looking to make a high quality portfolio that looks like a soft/hardcover book print the pages out yourself with you good printer/plotter and paper and find a place that does book binding. Some book binding places don't charge to much and offer discount if you do more than one binding.
I printed a large-format (11"x14") hardcover book of photos from my se asia trip on Blurb. I thought the results were fantastic. I did use their software, which is surprisingly versatile and easy to use.
I'm interested and am considering using it for my grad school portfolio. It means I'll have to change my current portfolio layout from 9 x 7 to 10 x 8. While it's not the end of the world, I currently have 20+ pages laid out to my liking and reformatting will be time consuming.
I absolutely refuse to use their lay-out software. I'm a creature of InDesign.
I will preface all this with my spiel of "I was a graphic designer before I started studying architecture, and if you are limited by any software, that's your problem, not the software's."
Blurb's canned, yet decent, formats could be a godsend for the majority of architects, who frankly should not be allowed anywhere near a blank page. If you NEED InDesign, that means you are fine-tuning typography. If you do not know how to do this, blurb's software is fine. So is Powerpoint, for that matter.
For lulu - I've had raves and complaints. The print quality is completely fine, exactly what you'd expect from one-off digital printing. No, it is not going to match the quality of offset printed $90 art books. But, I've heard some complaints of jobs being messed up in a way that is actually printer's fault - wrong size, wrong binding, trimmed wrong, funny fonts, crop marks included, jaggles, etc.
If you use lulu (or any service, for that matter) - do it with plenty of time to spare, and order one copy to check it before you print the 6 you're sending to grad schools or whatever. Apparently, they have very accommodating and rapid customer service who will do a very thorough job of making sure that your book turns out as intended if there is a mistake on their end. (If you're going to be making books, ever, you should expect to build in proofing time to your deadline anyway.)
Aug 6, 08 1:14 pm ·
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lulu or similar online publisher
im in the process of putting my portfolio together and im looking to use an online publisher like lulu. after searching i found a thread created in 2006 talking about formatting issues and quality of the finished piece. its now two years later and im wondering what people's opinions are now of lulu [or would you recommend an alternative?] - of their paper and ink quality, formatting issues, etc. have things changed in two years, what are people using these days to print their portfolios?
thanks
in my only experience with lulu, the quality of the print was decent, but the finished product had a completely different format than what was submitted.
im in the middle of doing this now as well. a little more expensive but that site looks pretty good surfaces, have you used them before? if so can i take your recommendation here that you were happy?
In the office I work at used we LULU like three of times and I can say that the results are not consistent if you are doing full color.
For one the paper is crappy and the printers they use are basically laser color. The color was off in like 20 pages of a publication of 100 pages and in one publication some pages came out f'ed up with weird print marks. LULU does not really have a quality control so I would definitely NOT recommend it for a portfolio you plan to take to interviews, but works well as a mockup to see were you are at.
good to know about lulu...exactly what i was afraid of. i'd also like to know if anyone has used blurb to see what they thought. looks good.
2nd complex on lulu. i did a test portfolio and it ended up looking like a laser printer w/ the coated semi-gloss laser color paper. colors were grainy and inconsistent. looked about the same as a kinko's color laser job chopped and stapled. not really worth it.
looked at blurb but i hated the fact that blurb needs you to use their software to lay things out. admittedly you can do it all before hand and drop in already done pages as raster images but i don't like that. it just shows that the customer base is geared more towards hobbyists than professionals...
the office i'm at currently sent out to a local bookbinder after printing at a local printshop and it came out great, but takes more effort for what you get.
good point about the software ACfA, i assumed i could just drop pdf's in there but it does seem like a lot of extra work, not to mention i've already started laying out everything in A4 format, which of course they don't offer. looks like i'll be printing it myself.
I recently used lulu for a large order (400+ books). Overall, I was pleased. I didn't fall in love with the final product but they produced a good print at a great price.
I did see many color inconsistencies with the color grey although I used the same swatch each time.
As n_ points out, large orders is when LULU is a great benefit b/c of the low cost.
Out of experience if you are looking to make a high quality portfolio that looks like a soft/hardcover book print the pages out yourself with you good printer/plotter and paper and find a place that does book binding. Some book binding places don't charge to much and offer discount if you do more than one binding.
I printed a large-format (11"x14") hardcover book of photos from my se asia trip on Blurb. I thought the results were fantastic. I did use their software, which is surprisingly versatile and easy to use.
Any Blurb experiences out there?
I'm interested and am considering using it for my grad school portfolio. It means I'll have to change my current portfolio layout from 9 x 7 to 10 x 8. While it's not the end of the world, I currently have 20+ pages laid out to my liking and reformatting will be time consuming.
I absolutely refuse to use their lay-out software. I'm a creature of InDesign.
I will preface all this with my spiel of "I was a graphic designer before I started studying architecture, and if you are limited by any software, that's your problem, not the software's."
Blurb's canned, yet decent, formats could be a godsend for the majority of architects, who frankly should not be allowed anywhere near a blank page. If you NEED InDesign, that means you are fine-tuning typography. If you do not know how to do this, blurb's software is fine. So is Powerpoint, for that matter.
For lulu - I've had raves and complaints. The print quality is completely fine, exactly what you'd expect from one-off digital printing. No, it is not going to match the quality of offset printed $90 art books. But, I've heard some complaints of jobs being messed up in a way that is actually printer's fault - wrong size, wrong binding, trimmed wrong, funny fonts, crop marks included, jaggles, etc.
If you use lulu (or any service, for that matter) - do it with plenty of time to spare, and order one copy to check it before you print the 6 you're sending to grad schools or whatever. Apparently, they have very accommodating and rapid customer service who will do a very thorough job of making sure that your book turns out as intended if there is a mistake on their end. (If you're going to be making books, ever, you should expect to build in proofing time to your deadline anyway.)
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