Welcome to the Escape Blog

Standard marketing logic says I shouldn’t say what I’m about to. But, you and I both know that I can’t hide what’s out there anyway and I actually find it all rather exciting.

Innovation is what it’s about these days as more and more traditional jobs, trades and products become commoditized (is that a word?). You may not agree with it, but the flip side is that it’s driving down the prices we pay at the other end - from your computers made in Ireland, and your clothes made in China.

Even in the design / print trade we have seen industries go out of business - not companies, industries.

When The Escape started we used production houses for film output, platemaking, scanning; each with trained professionals who had spent years crafting their skills. We no longer need them. Digital printing, direct to plate, colour correction and digital cameras have replaced the lot.
Artworking now seems to be going in the same direction. Don’t get me wrong - there are good artworkers and their are people who pretend to know what they are doing and there is a great divide.

Understanding spread, colour profiles, trapping, leading, widows and orphans, etc. are still requirements for any competent artworker, but I am beginning to see that even this process, at what I would term the lower end of the market, is being wrapped up as a commodity.

AWOL is a new website to get companies like us, out of the do-do when we have artwork overload.

The pricing is comparable to freelancer rates, so is both affordable and attractive. Who it’s done by and where, and their costs of production, are of course factors that are now much more in play in global trading. I could send my artwork to someone at 5pm GMT, get it done by someone in another part of the world, and have it ready for 9am the next day at a fraction of the cost… if I chose to.

Of course, the deciding factor still is quality.

Another interesting product we have just got involved with is from Storepoint International. Here we are talking about taking your artwork and automating the repetitive processes - translation, artwork updates, etc. I think it’s an amazing product with some serious ramifications for many organizations and I am looking forward to getting my teeth into the new website we are creating.

Imagine you are a global company and have a branded press release for twenty countries. Vernacular translation in essential to get your message across in an engaging way. You upload your artwork source file (QuarkXpress); transcreators (a cross over of translator/localised copywriter) amend the file, priced by the word, and you have print ready artwork for distribution in hours, rather than days, costing a fraction of what it normally would.

Love it or hate it, commoditization is here and now and may be coming to an industry near you… are you ready?