What usually caused the wobble happened much earlier in the process at the briefing stage. And this is where having print briefing best practices in place makes all the difference.
Because good print rarely fails on the press. Where it struggles is when the intent behind it hasn’t been fully translated into a brief that works commercially as well as creatively.
Many print briefs arrive with a clear idea of what needs producing, but much less clarity around why.
We might see a format chosen because it’s familiar, rather than because it suits the campaign. Perhaps artwork has been supplied before paper, finishes or delivery constraints have been discussed. Budgets may have been created without a sense of priority, or timelines built on optimism rather than production reality.
None of this is unusual. Marketing teams are juggling a lot, designers are under pressure, and print often appears later in the process than it should.
But it’s in these small gaps that time, money, and brand consistency can start to quietly unravel.
This is a phrase we hear a lot – and it’s easy to see why.
Artwork feels like progress. It’s where ideas become visible, and decisions start to feel real. But expecting artwork alone to resolve production questions almost always creates more cost, not less.
Artwork can’t suddenly bring a piece back into the right postal band once the design is fixed. It can’t make an un-machinable format suitable for mailing or undo a finish choice that tips a job over budget. And it certainly can’t fix expectations that were never aligned in the first place.
By the time an issue shows up at artwork stage, fixing it is usually expensive. This is often where buyer anxiety creeps in: reprints, overruns, and those internal conversations no one really wants to have.
This is where our marketing foundation really earns its keep.
A commercially sound print brief doesn’t need to be long or overly detailed, but what it does need is intention.
At its best, it clearly covers:
When these things are clear from the outset, decisions become calmer, conversations become easier, and the work holds together all the way through.
This is exactly the space Print Wisdom® is designed to support.
It’s not about adding extra process or slowing things down. It’s about strengthening your print briefing best practices by asking the right questions early enough to protect the outcome you’re aiming for.
With Print Wisdom®:
That’s what removes the fear around reprints, overruns, and disappointment – not by controlling the process, but by supporting it properly.
Print isn’t fragile, and it isn’t unpredictable, it simply responds directly to the quality of the brief it’s given.
When intent is clear, strategy leads, and production is considered early, print does exactly what it’s meant to do – it delivers consistently, commercially, and with confidence.
If you’d like support shaping briefs that set your print up for success, we’d love to help, so get in touch. Our Print Wisdom® is here to make the process feel steadier, clearer, and far less stressful.
Gill Robinson
20th January 2026
by PAGE