Articles
Notes from producing team kit and from building the script I use for it. Six articles so far and more will follow. Most of them are about things I had to work out on my own.
CorelDRAW
An order of 680 pieces. The export took one hour and four minutes
A customer’s graphic designer wrote down the times on a large order. Exporting 680 pieces took one hour and four minutes, the preparation around it eight and a half hours. The numbers are not mine, they are hers.
Illustrator CorelDRAW
A club logo inside the jersey number
The club wants its logo on the number too. It is a small thing at the foot of the digit, except every digit has that foot in a different place. How to set it up once and forget about it.
Illustrator CorelDRAW
A font with no diacritics. What to do when the player is called ŠŤASTNÝ
The player is called Šťastný and the font has no caron. Neither Illustrator nor CorelDRAW asks, they quietly reach for another typeface. I write about what can be done and why swapping the font is not the answer.
Illustrator
Ten jerseys by hand, or by script. Why I run it even on small orders
A club sends ten names. I describe what I still do by hand, what the script does for me, and why I prepare a template even if it is one single jersey.
CorelDRAW
CorelDRAW Print Merge: what it does and what it doesn't
Print Merge combines a spreadsheet with a template and prints what you need. But production does not want print, it wants finished PDFs named after the players. And that is where it starts to break down.
Illustrator
Illustrator Variable Data: limits and batch PDF export
The Variables panel does more than most people think. I went through how far it reaches and where I had to reach for a script. And I admit a mistake I took for an Illustrator bug for a year.
