Well, here we are everybody.
It's Friday
at Markzware Europe. The sun is shining. It's a beautiful day. We're going to have some...
a nice weekend ahead of us.
And we got a call today from... from Paul, Paul de Boer,
who talked to Sharon and said he wanted to buy FlightCheck.
Well, Sharon said. "Great. We'll put you through to one of our resellers."
Well, Paul said, "No. I work at home. I'm a freelance designer and
I want to get out today on the bike. You're right down the street.
I'm going to bike down to you."
Sharon was a little bit shocked, because we don't get that request every day,
doing all over Europe,
but after, she gained her composure and said, "Well, we don't normally sell directly.
We go to our dealers, but, in this case,
since you're going to bike down,
we'll take... we'll make an exception."
So, about an hour later,
Paul arrived. We were started to wonder if it wasn't a joke,
if he was going to come or whatever,
but, in Holland, it's quite normal to bike around, most of this year, to bike to work and whatnot.
Paul came by and hour later
and here he... here he is.
And we decided to videotape this, because it's... it's kind of interesting,
but also, in talking to Paul, he has very interesting story to tell.
Paul's company is called Atelier,
and, you know, he's a freelancer,
and he does web design and...
and graphical layouts, makes books and things like that for,
I guess, all sorts of customers. Paul, is that right?
Mainly,
not very many groups,
but mainly artists. Artists. I...
That's your specialty.
So, helping artists with
printing their works or... ?
Well, making books. Making books.
I'm an artist myself. Okay.
And I make art books,
invitations, for exhibitions... Okay. Very good.
So, that's the main thing.
Very nice.
And also historical books.
Historical books. Okay.
And your web address, just, you know, for the viewers, it's
pauldeboer.eu
and that's P-A-U-L-D-E-B-O-E-R dot E-U
and he has a nice-looking business card
and I'm sure his web page is equally as nice.
But what really got me about...
about...
you know, Paul's story here is that he was telling me he was just down at the
printer shop, the print shop,
and they had a little debate about how he should deliver his
100-page, I believe it was... Yes.
...book that he is currently working on,
and...
we'll get into that in a moment, but first, which application do you use, Paul,
to do your designing?
Adobe program CS3.
CS3? InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator...
Okay. And QuarkXPress, at all or... ? I used to work with Quark, but now I changed
to InDesign. InDesign.
Okay, and
now back to this printer.
So, what... maybe get his... Tell us what happened, what the situation was.
I went to the printer this morning
to deliver the files,
and we started
a discussion about
how to bring in the files,
open-source
or InDesign files,
or certified PDF.
I am a
little bit against
PDF,
because in a book of a hundred pages,
with working with deadlines...
Okay, I know I am a
"skills" man.
Is that it? Yeah.
I know what I'm doing.
I'm searching for perfection,
but everybody can make a mistake,
and making changes in a PDF
that I don't like.
When I want to make a change,
I make it in the original file. Yeah.
That's how you were taught? Yes.
By your design teacher? And it makes sense to me...
Yeah, and it makes sense, yeah. Making the reprint later
then it leads to having the original file as correct, yeah.
Yeah, now, that's very good.
It's
toeval, as they say in Dutch, or coincidence. Yesterday, we had another
large printer, large Dutch printer here,
and he was telling us an interesting thing is that
many of his customers are going back to delivering
open file: InDesign, Quark, or Illustrator,
for the very reason that,
yeah, PDF editors are great. They have their place in the workflow,
but they shouldn't be
replacing
desktop publishing tools.
and he said, yeah, you know, we... we want certified PDF. It's a good
initiative, but,
at the end of the day, if the customer wants to deliver
an open file, we're... we're taking them and we will take them and
it just makes sense.
So, now, why did you buy FlightCheck today?
Because I just delivered the files and maybe I made some mistakes
and then I want this weekend
to have the time to correct them properly. Hmm-hmm. Yeah.
And now, InDesign,
the program InDesign,
you can have a short FlightCheck, as well,
but I'm searching for perfection,
and FlightCheck from Markzware is...
giving more details and... Yes. ...yeah, exactly.
Yeah, we have another video on our YouTube channel. You can look down below,
and you'll see our FlightCheck vs. InDesign.
Yeah, that maybe a bit of an aggressive title, but it's... it's not meant like that.
It's just showing
how much further FlightCheck goes, in comparison to InDesign.
So, very good, Paul.
Yeah, anything else about your... your workflow or anything else you want to add
or tell us today?
In what way? What are you doing this weekend?
Probably checking the book. (laughs)
Oh, yeah. Okay.
Well, luckily,
with FlightCheck... Yes. ...hopefully, you'll still have time to go off and enjoy the nice weather,
and it sounds... Yeah, I'll probably be on the beach. Yes, Scheveningen by The Hague is the big beach.
Kijkduin.
Kijkduin?
Oh, that's also very nice.
Yeah, more relaxed. Yeah, more relaxed, not so crowded.
Not so crowded? Well, probably crowded enough on Saturday, I guess,
with this... with this weather.
Yes, but it's not... Kijkduin is more bigger.
Well, I have one, actually, one more question for you, Paul. You know, we work with a lot of
freelancers, designers,
and I'm always curious:
How and why... how did you make the jump from
to being a freelance
graphic designer?
Ooh, it's a long story.
YouTube has a 10-minute limit, so... (laughs)
Well, to tell it short,
When I was 20,
I was already very interested
in graphic design,
but that was what I call the
pre-computer time.
I never got the right education for that,
so, I became an artist in painting,
but now, with the computer
possibilities,
it's easier to learn.
So, I started the
education,
and then I worked for a publisher
for three years,
but unfortunately
that company
was finished
and then at my age,
in Holland,
I thought that now it's time,
and there aren't enough possibilities and chances to start your own company.
Yeah. And the freedom...
so much relaxed.
Yeah, yeah. So, you...
you went and got another education
on
graphic design
That's about
five or six years ago that I had a
very intense education.
Normally, it's three years.
I had to do it in six months, so... Wow! ...for the whole design...
Yes, the whole... and prepress. ...enchilada, as we say. Yeah, yeah. Wow! Very good.
Yeah, okay. Well, that's it. Well, thank you very much.
Thank you, Paul for, you know, buying. Here's his FlightCheck.
He actually got a FlightCheck Designer. That's the light version of FlightCheck, but...
That's what I am. That's... The designer, exactly. (laughs)
Very good, Paul.
And, yeah, thank you and, you know,
just keep sending your videos in. If you have a story to tell,
something about Markzware, pre-flight, even, in general,
FlightCheck, our conversion tools.
We have Quark to InDesign conversion tools, which, actually, maybe Paul needs one of those.
And we have the other way, InDesign to Quark.
And, you know, Quark 8's coming. There's a lot of excitement around Quark, as well, still.
And, of course, Adobe is fantastic, but, if you have a story to tell,
please feel free to video yourself with your
your webcam or with your...
your MacBook Pro
or whatever it might be, and send it in. You get a free T-shirt just for sending it in.
And Paul will get one, too. Well, thank you very much, Paul. We got everything and there's the default.
It was nice. Very nice meeting you. You're always welcome for coffee or water or whatever.