Banners & Anime Midwest & Things

Banners!

The new fabric banners arrived last night!

2 ft. x 2 ft. banner

2 ft. x 4 ft. banner

Hmm. I don't seem to have done the same color-correction on both pictures, the banners are the same colors. I also discovered that PhotoShop Touch for the iWhatsit can only rotate 90 or 180 degrees, not an arbitrary value like I needed to for the picture of the square banner.

The cream colored background they're supposed to have turned out only vaguely off-white (the picture of the big banner is closer to how they really look), but the rest of the graphics aren't the horrible washed-out mess that resulted when the previous printer tried to color-correct the background to white. Their turnaround time was fast, as mentioned previously, and their prices were good - $60-ish and $30-ish for each banner, plus shipping. So, I endorse this printer, MegaPrint(.com), and will be willing to use them again.

My only complaint is that they rolled the larger banner up the silly way, so it was a 4' long roll, which meant it shipped in something like a 5' long box, which was more pricey than the box for a 2' long tube would have been. I'm assuming that they usually do big stuff, so that's what they have shipping supplies for, and be content. They also didn't set grommets on the centers of the long sides of the big banner, but we can fix that ourselves. 

I tried the square banner with the plain brown text for "tter Necessities" that I used on the big banner, but it needed something more. Then I tried the two-color "tter Necessities" on the big banner, but that was too busy with the other text. If you click for the full-size pictures, the smaller print on the big banner has a lighter highlight. 

Other Things

Yesterday we also received the second order of photopolymer printing plates. Unfortunately, I made an error on how I submitted the plates for the printer to gang up, so they're closer together than I wanted them to be - I can't trim them to the size of the finished piece, which would have made setup and registration easier. Ron came up with a workaround, though. Wednesday we got the custom-mix dark brown ink I'd ordered, which I think I've forgotten to mention up until now. The green ink and replacement adhesive for the polymer plates is scheduled for delivery today (the adhesive on the plates is good for more than one use, but I'm not sure how many times it will be good for, and ordering some to have some on hand was cheap peace of mind).

I considered trimming plates and printing last night, but decided I had insufficient functioning brain cells.

Still haven't made the order form for calling/business cards. Must do that this weekend.

A while back I volunteered to help with publications for the annual floodplain managers' conference I attend. Got e-mail about it last night, responded this morning, we'll see how it goes. Normally my content deadlines for convention books are 6 and 8 weeks from the convention. Wednesday was 7 weeks from this one, and I'm busy next weekend with Military History Fest, the next weekend with Cap, and some of my proposals are a pretty big change from how things have been done in the past for this conference. Even if I can't convince them to try everything, I'm hoping for some incremental progress.

Anime Midwest - Yet More Kvetching

Yesterday I wrote down the timeline of registering for ACen and Anime Midwest. 

I started the ACen Exhibitor registration process on September 1st. On September 9th I got e-mail that I was approved and the process to continue with choosing space, etc. was X, Y, Z. I got updates on September 11th, October 15th, 22nd, and 28th, chose my space on October 28th, more updates on November 5th and 14th, and paid for my space, finishing the process, on November 16th. One or two of the updates were extras because of a change in their process from previous years, and one or two were responses, prompt ones, to e-mail I sent. But even though I did get frustrated with the process, I mostly knew what was going on, and it was wrapped up in 2-1/2 months.

Now let's look at Anime Midwest:
I started the process on October 31st. Unlike ACen's on-line system, no mail echoing what I sent, or acknowledgement it was received. I e-mailed on 11 November, heard only the chirping of crickets, so I e-mailed their parent organization on November 21st. On November 25th I finally got a response that they're still reviewing exhibitor applications, with nothing about when they'd actually have an answer. Since then . . . crickets.  A week from today will be 3 months since I submitted the application, and they can't manage to get me an answer ACen got me in 8 days. 

I'm debating when (not, you note, "if") I want to poke at Anime Midwest again. Also if I want to even be an exhibitor with them, given how things are going so far.  We did well at ACen, and had a bunch of people ask if we'd be at Anime Midwest, so I think we'd do well there, too. OTOH, I'm not getting a feeling of competence.  ACen's process as described wasn't how it really worked out, but at least they communicated.