August 9, 2022 • 17 mins
Rosie Stewart, Editorial and Pre-press Director at River Editorial, in conversation with Kat Mitchell, Publishing Services Manager at emc design, discussing the relationship between design and editorial mark-up, as well as how proofreading methods and mark-up have changed over the past decade, where we are now, and what the future might look like.
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Rosie Stewart (00:00):
Hi, and welcome to Westchester words, UK.
I'm Rosie Stewart, editorial andpre-press director at river
editorial.
A division of Westchesterpublishing services UK.
I am delighted to welcome myguest today, Kat Mitchell
publishing services manager atEMC design.
I had the pleasure of meeting KArecently at the independent
publisher's Guild awards lunch,and there was so much more we
(00:22):
wanted to discuss.
So we thought we'd take thisopportunity to extend our
conversation.
Thank you, Kat for joining me.
Can you tell us a bit more aboutyour background and your day to
day role at EMC design?
Kat Mitchell (00:34):
Hi Rosie.
Thanks for that intro.
It's great.
Being here, chatting with youtoday.
A little bit of background forme, as you can probably tell
from my voice I'm American, but I've lived in the
UK for over 10 years now.
Pretty much since getting my MAin publishing at Oxford Brooks.
I'm currently, as you said, thepublishing services manager here
at EMC, heading up thenon-design side of the studio,
(00:57):
and I've also worked in-house atOUP and Pearson, um, as well as
about a year and a halffreelance dedicated to
freelance, although, um, stilldo the odd editorial thing on
the side at the moment.
Um, and project manager and sortof as far as day to day role,
uh, given that EMC is at heart,a design studio, having
(01:20):
specialized in design andtypesetting for publishers for,
you know, over three decades,our publishing services team
supports the smooth running ofthe design side, sort of through
proof checking, quality control,artwork, management, photo
research, and licensing, andthen more recently project
management.
Rosie Stewart (01:37):
Mm-hmm, Great.
So you've certainly got plentygoing on then.
that doesn't sound thatyou have many quiet moments in
your day.
Absolutely.
But it's great to hear all aboutyour background and I've
definitely learned a few thingsabout you that I didn't know
before.
So thank you for sharing.
Um, so River and Westchesterwork with EMC on projects that
involve not only design, butalso editorial services, which I
(01:58):
know is your particular area.
And you mentioned it a couple oftimes there in your intro.
So can you tell me a bit moreabout the relationship between
design and editorial at EMC?
Yeah,
Kat Mitchell (02:07):
Yeah, sure.
I think, you know, even withoutit being within EMC, there's a
really symbiotic relationshipgoing on between design and
editorial.
Um, quality is something that wetake a huge pride in here.
So as we grew the need for asort of trained editorial, I
grew alongside that.
(02:27):
My first role here at EMC waspretty much straight out of the
ma.
So I was a proof checkercarrying out QA checks and
making sure the designers dideverything they were asked to do
by the editors.
And when I started in that role,I sort of saw myself as a
translator of sorts, sort ofsomeone who could help the
designers to interpret aparticularly tricky markup.
(02:50):
Yeah.
And, and grasp what the editorwas really trying to do or say
mm-hmm, but alsosomeone who could help the
designers, you know, converselyexplain to the editors why maybe
something they wanted to havehappen, couldn't.
Rosie Stewart (03:02):
Sure.
Yeah.
Kat Mitchell (03:04):
Um, so we've now got four production editors to
kind of help with that role.
And they're all E editoriallytrained to help with the quality
control checks.
But at the same time, they'vebeen trained to understand the
way that the designers here workand how things get placed on the
page, what can be done and whatcan't be done depending on how
the page is set up and thetemplates used, et cetera.
(03:26):
Um, so we get to see both sidesof the workflow, which is really
nice, both for the productioneditors here, but also for the
designers to kind of havesomeone internally who can both
be that translator, but also thesort of liaison of saying, Hey,
you know, this is what they'retrying to do.
Why are they trying to do this?
And we can say, oh, well, youknow, from a grammar standpoint
(03:48):
or from a, you know, curriculumstandpoint, this needs to
happen.
And then the designer says,well, but it's not possible.
sure.
Um, but it's kind of helpingthem word that properly so that
the editorial team on the otherend understands why.
And yeah, as I mentioned before,that sort of has grown into
project management.
That liaison aspect, um, hasreally grown into project
(04:11):
management, editorialmanagement, which was sort of
that organic response to theindustry as a whole and the sort
of need for more end to endservices in one point of
contact.
Rosie Stewart (04:22):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Thank you for that.
I really particularly love thatimage you've given of seeing
yourself as a translator, whichI think is such a helpful
comparison.
Um, I've never really thought ofit in those terms before, but,
um, the proofreading symbols,which we're gonna talk about
more later are really like alanguage in their own right.
Definitely.
And so translator is absolutelythe right word for that.
And that really resonates withthe sort of work that I do for
(04:45):
River Editorial in all theliaison between the different
parts of the process.
Um, so yeah, I'll definitelysquirrel that away.
It's a, an image to come back to.
So we've both been working inthe publishing industry for
quite a few years now.
And in that time I've certainlynoticed a lot of changes,
particularly in editorial work.
And the most noticeable is ofcourse the change from hard copy
(05:07):
to electronic proofs.
So is this something that you'venoticed as well?
Kat Mitchell (05:11):
I don't think anyone didn't notice.
Rosie Stewart (05:12):
< laugh> you're right! that's probably saying
the obvious.
Kat Mitchell (05:13):
Yeah.
But I think I do o ften forgetjust how recent that shift was.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, people talkabout in my lifetime, in my
working lifetime< laugh>absolutely is when that really
happened.
M m-hmm< affirmative> a nd Idon't know about you, but I can
still really strongly rememberthat rush of trying to print
(05:35):
out, you know, six levels of 136 page student books ready for
the courier who was gonna arriveat five on the dot.
And so they needed to beprinted, packaged, bound,
labeled< laugh> stick that, youknow, the sort of c ompliments
note in there.
U m, a nd get it ready to go inthat last half h our stretch
right before the c ourier comes.
Rosie Stewart (05:57):
Yeah.
And we used to buy paper by theboxload.
Yes.
You know, chucking it in and itcomes out with the printer, all
lovely and warm and fresh andready to go.
Kat Mitchell (06:04):
Yeah, That smell of printed book, but not quite,
Rosie Stewart (06:06):
Yeah.
Not quite there
Kat Mitchell (06:08):
Without the bounding glue.
Yeah.
And sort of similarly, you know,that anticipation of opening a
set of proofs from a client whenit's come back, how many sticky
notes are you gonna see?
Is there gonna be, you know,pages of red or blue markup,
what are the margins gonna looklike?
Are they gonna be full offreelancers asking questions and
clients responding?
Are there still gonna bequestions outstanding that we
(06:29):
then have to get in touch withanyone about?
Rosie Stewart (06:31):
Yeah.
And I love like I love openingthe, the packaging and then
seeing what you might learn fromthe proofs in terms of maybe the
odd coffee, stain, um,and little, you know, little
hints that there's actually ahuman on the other side, which
is, it is quite nice in a way.
Kat Mitchell (06:45):
Absolutely.
We enjoyed the sort ofanticipatory.
It's not anything nefarious.
It is just my dinner last nighton
Rosie Stewart (06:52):
The dog ate my homework type.
Absolutely.
Kat Mitchell (06:55):
in my
case, it would be the toddler
ate my homework,
Rosie Stewart (06:57):
The toddler, right.
My homework
Kat Mitchell (06:58):
anyway.
So getting a little nostalgichere.
I know.
Um, and there's, there'sdefinitely some financial and
especially environmentaladvantages to, to the change
from that to mainly PDF based.
But I do think there's somethingthat still gets a little bit
lost when a set of proofs hasn'tbeen printed out at some point
during the process before goingto press.
(07:19):
And so we do try hard to do thathere, at least once in the
cycle.
Okay.
But yeah, gradually, you know,couriers came less frequently,
request for PDFs grew.
And I think that was around thetime when sort of proofreading
stamps came out.
I know Louise Hornby did a lotof work, um, putting together
some stamps that look just likethe BSI stamps and you could
(07:40):
just use them on a PDF.
So when we were doing that, wehad to make the PDFs, you know,
wide enough with enough marginand, and top and tail to allow
for those side notes still on aPDF.
And then those marks were usedon top, which I think helped a
lot during the transition.
And I know that from, fromanecdotal evidence, at least we
(08:01):
heard that a lot of the offshoretypesetters really were keen to
keep that going, because they'dlearned, as we said, that that
language, the BSI languagethey'd learned that.
And so rather than having tolearn a whole new language
during the transition, it wasjust, Nope, just send us those
BSI marks.
Please keep it,
Rosie Stewart (08:18):
Keep it sort of forming a bridge between the two
methods absolutely.
Kat Mitchell (08:22):
While, but thankfully that sort of
transition was shortlivedbecause those files were
enormous.
true.
Yeah.
Definitely got very stuck withthings and you'd still have to,
I mean, a lot of times you'dstill have to print them out
anyway, because it just waseasier.
But after that, we kind of saw afew proofing platforms that a
few people have tried, butnothing just really was as
robust to beat out the likes ofAdobe who can, you know, with
(08:46):
Reader, they just keep trying toimprove it and get more
efficient with things.
And it's really being able touse those tools, which is what
they're there for and use themin, in a similar way to the BSI
marks, but with the tools thatare, that are there in Adobe.
Rosie Stewart (09:01):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
And we we've definitely overcomequite a few of those problems, I
would say.
And we're reaching a point wherethe PDF markup is the, the
normal way to work.
Although some people do stilllike to print out.
Um, it's definitely been afantastic way of hugely reducing
print output of proofs thatultimately just go straight into
the recycling, cuz they're notused for anything else.
So it's has huge environmentalbenefits.
(09:24):
And so that's definitelysomething to hold onto as well
as hopefully being well it'scertainly it is more efficient
and now that we are more used toit, but it's certainly been a
journey mm-hmm.
So I know that in EMC is a veryfast moving environment in
general.
I know some of your turnaroundtimes are very quick and River
and Westchester.
We're also always looking to beas efficient as we possibly can.
(09:46):
So with this in mind, bearing inmind what we just discussed.
Do you think that proofreadersshould still be learning the
traditional proof symbols?
Or do you think that we've movedon from that now?
Kat Mitchell (09:56):
Yeah, it's something that I have to think
about quite a lot.
Cause I'm in a few forums wherethey ask these questions.
Um, and obviously the newgeneration are very much of the
opinion, Well, why do we needto, if we're never going to use
it, whereas the older generationstill understands the kind of
reasonings behind it existing inthe first place.
(10:16):
And you know, as editors, welove to know the origins of
words.
Yeah.
Why not, you know, apply that toprocesses.
That's so true.
So those traditional markupswere, they were a language, they
were a, an art form, a way totalk to typesetters and
designers without having to uselots and lots of words.
Um, you can talk clearly, youknow, exactly what's necessary
(10:37):
because of that, because of themarks and, and what you're
trying to get across.
And I think Acrobat and and PDFshave kind of made us a little
bit lazy in that regard.
Mm-hmm
Rosie Stewart (10:49):
Yeah,
Kat Mitchell (10:50):
Not that anyone in the industry is lazy.
We all work very hard butin terms of making that concise,
uh, description of what you wantto get done happen, it's so much
easier now to just kind of writeparagraphs within one sticky
note.
Yeah.
And then whoever is reading itor having to make the change has
(11:11):
to read the entire paragraph.
Rosie Stewart (11:12):
Yeah, when you're scrolling within a comment, you
know, that it, the comment istoo long.
Kat Mitchell (11:17):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Um, and maybe there's, you know,only one salient bit of detail
mm-hmm within that,that actually needs to occur.
So, you know, that kind of thingjust would never have been
considered on printed markupmm-hmm, which I
think, you know, in that sense,we've kind of lost that ability
to be concise and efficient fromthat standpoint.
(11:37):
And obviously we've also lostthe difference between blue and
red markup.
So it's a bit more difficult tokind of track and analyze
quality, you know, with a fullset of traditionally marked
proofs coming back in, you cantell, are they gonna be all
blue?
So was it, you know, justeditorial changes or is it, you
know, a bunch of red typesetterserrors that we need to worry
about the fact that something'sgone wrong at the last proof
(11:59):
stage?
You know, we do obviously keeptrack of the number of comments.
So opening the comments list isquite helpful to just see the
number of comments that comethrough, but you still have to
spend a bit more time kind ofanalyzing what are those
comments were they marked up atthe previous proof stage, um,
kind of flicking back throughdifferent stages to just make
(12:19):
sure that we are doing the bestwe can for our clients.
Rosie Stewart (12:22):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I think it's such a helpfulcomparison to think of the
proofreading symbols is, um,thinking about the origin of
words.
And in that we, we might not usethose original versions anymore,
but understanding them helps usto work better in the present
day.
So, um, I do, I completely agreethat it's still worth learning
those.
And sometimes those symbols arethe most simple way still to
(12:43):
mark something.
You're, you're marking it with ared pencil on screen, but it's
still the same mark and there'sno better way to express that.
So I would absolutely encourageanybody who's, who's getting
into proofreading now to stilllearn those symbols so that they
can still refer to that languageif it's, if it's the most
appropriate way.
But now we also have the benefitof having additional options,
(13:05):
um, and sort of a hybridapproach, I guess, where you
might write a comment, you mightdraw a symbol, you might use the
drawing tools and you don't haveto Tipp-ex it if you get it
wrong, which is the major bonus,especially if you've done
something
Kat Mitchell (13:16):
You across the page,
Rosie Stewart (13:17):
trying to
get tiny little Tipp-ex
Kat Mitchell (13:20):
Absolutely,
Rosie Stewart (13:21):
Absolutely.
That's great.
And for anyone who's notfamiliar with the red and blue
markup, this would traditionallyhave been done using colored
ink.
So you'd have a row of differentBiros on your desk.
And the red ink would be usedfor typesetter or design errors
in the blue ink would be usedfor copyedit errors.
So the proofs would be verycolorful and you could
immediately tell which waswhich, and there are some ways
(13:41):
you can do that by changing thefont color of comments or
different colored sticky notes,but it it's a bit awkward, I
would say, and it doesn't workquite as well.
So that probably is one way inwhich actually the old system
was, was maybe better.
And I'm sure that we will cometo develop different ways to
manage that, but theredefinitely is still a place for
(14:03):
those types of systems, I wouldsay.
So just to move on to a slightlydifferent topic, at Westchester
and River, we're increasinglybeing asked to provide digital
publishing services andaccessibility features and in
this ever growing space ofdigital publishing and
particularly platform-basedlearning, do you think there's
still a place for traditionalpublishing stages and workflows?
Kat Mitchell (14:25):
Yeah, I mean, you're probably gathering at
this point that I'm pretty oldfashioned.
Not at all thing.
no, um, old fashioned,but still happy to use
technology.
, you know, maybe we'rejust not seeing quite the, the
tech side of it yet.
Most probably, you know, 95% ofwhat we do is, is still very
much print-based.
And although we are, we areseeing more of the impact of
(14:49):
digital now and, and more of theimpact of what publishers want
to do with their printed booksand then move them to digital.
We are sort of seeing the impactof that on schedules and the way
they want to approach the printside of things.
It's still very much thetraditional water flow workflow
of trying to get the qualityfirst, before trying to do
(15:13):
anything technologicallyadvanced with the material that
they've got.
So, you know, you've got a bitof this idea of, of at least our
clients in publishing are, arevery much all about quality over
quantity and that content basis.
So, you know, you've, you'vetechnically got publishing that
you can call Twitter, TikTok,Instagram, all of that is
(15:34):
technically publishing.
Um, and so they are sort of moredigital first, but that element
of quality control and goingthrough the process of making
sure it is exactly the rightmaterial that you want out there
can't really happen.
I don't think without a moretraditional workflow or at least
that a snippet of that within amore traditional workflow.
Rosie Stewart (15:53):
In order to ensure that you're still having
the same levels of quality checkand the development of the
material mm-hmm.
So just before we wrap up, it'sbeen fantastic talking to you
and I've certainly learned loadsfrom this conversation, really
enjoyed everything we'vediscussed.
I've got one more question foryou, which is what is one thing,
you know, now that you wish youhad known 10 years ago?
Kat Mitchell (16:16):
Ah, see, you've got the hard hitting questions
at the end.
Rosie Stewart (16:18):
I'm I'm afraid.
So
Kat Mitchell (16:20):
supposed
to be lofty one at the end
but I wish I'd known 10years ago.
Probably that there's wisdom inexperience, obviously there is
mm-hmm but that's,that's not to say that it's ever
too late to sort of pause andtry something different or new,
if you think it might help makethings more efficient or work
(16:43):
better.
Rosie Stewart (16:43):
Yeah.
Thank you.
I love that.
And I think that's a really goodsummary really of what we've
discussed today, which islearning from our experience and
from all the knowledge of thepast, but also bringing it into
the present and applying it andfinding new innovations.
So yeah.
Thank you for that.
That's great.
As I said, it's been brilliantchatting with you and hearing
all about your insights from theworld of design.
So thank you so much for joiningme.
(17:04):
For more podcasts fromWestchester publishing services,
UK, just search Westchester words on Spotify, Apple or Google
podcasts or find us on ourwebsite.
Hi, and welcome to Westchester words, UK.
I'm Rosie Stewart, editorial andpre-press director at river
editorial.
A division of Westchesterpublishing services UK.
I am delighted to welcome myguest today, Kat Mitchell
publishing services manager atEMC design.
I had the pleasure of meeting KArecently at the independent
publisher's Guild awards lunch,and there was so much more we
(00:22):
wanted to discuss.
So we thought we'd take thisopportunity to extend our
conversation.
Thank you, Kat for joining me.
Can you tell us a bit more aboutyour background and your day to
day role at EMC design?
Kat Mitchell (00:34):
Hi Rosie.
Thanks for that intro.
It's great.
Being here, chatting with youtoday.
A little bit of background forme, as you can probably tell
from my voice I'm American
UK for over 10 years now.
Pretty much since getting my MAin publishing at Oxford Brooks.
I'm currently, as you said, thepublishing services manager here
at EMC, heading up thenon-design side of the studio,
(00:57):
and I've also worked in-house atOUP and Pearson, um, as well as
about a year and a halffreelance dedicated to
freelance, although, um, stilldo the odd editorial thing on
the side at the moment.
Um, and project manager and sortof as far as day to day role,
uh, given that EMC is at heart,a design studio, having
(01:20):
specialized in design andtypesetting for publishers for,
you know, over three decades,our publishing services team
supports the smooth running ofthe design side, sort of through
proof checking, quality control,artwork, management, photo
research, and licensing, andthen more recently project
management.
Rosie Stewart (01:37):
Mm-hmm, Great.
So you've certainly got plentygoing on then.
your day.
Absolutely.
But it's great to hear all aboutyour background and I've
definitely learned a few thingsabout you that I didn't know
before.
So thank you for sharing.
Um, so River and Westchesterwork with EMC on projects that
involve not only design, butalso editorial services, which I
(01:58):
know is your particular area.
And you mentioned it a couple oftimes there in your intro.
So can you tell me a bit moreabout the relationship between
design and editorial at EMC?
Yeah,
Kat Mitchell (02:07):
Yeah, sure.
I think, you know, even withoutit being within EMC, there's a
really symbiotic relationshipgoing on between design and
editorial.
Um, quality is something that wetake a huge pride in here.
So as we grew the need for asort of trained editorial, I
grew alongside that.
(02:27):
My first role here at EMC waspretty much straight out of the
ma.
So I was a proof checkercarrying out QA checks and
making sure the designers dideverything they were asked to do
by the editors.
And when I started in that role,I sort of saw myself as a
translator of sorts, sort ofsomeone who could help the
designers to interpret aparticularly tricky markup.
(02:50):
Yeah.
And, and grasp what the editorwas really trying to do or say
mm-hmm
designers, you know, converselyexplain to the editors why maybe
something they wanted to havehappen, couldn't.
Rosie Stewart (03:02):
Sure.
Yeah.
Kat Mitchell (03:04):
Um, so we've now got four production editors to
kind of help with that role.
And they're all E editoriallytrained to help with the quality
control checks.
But at the same time, they'vebeen trained to understand the
way that the designers here workand how things get placed on the
page, what can be done and whatcan't be done depending on how
the page is set up and thetemplates used, et cetera.
(03:26):
Um, so we get to see both sidesof the workflow, which is really
nice, both for the productioneditors here, but also for the
designers to kind of havesomeone internally who can both
be that translator, but also thesort of liaison of saying, Hey,
you know, this is what they'retrying to do.
Why are they trying to do this?
And we can say, oh, well, youknow, from a grammar standpoint
(03:48):
or from a, you know, curriculumstandpoint, this needs to
happen.
And then the designer says,well, but it's not possible.
Um, but it's kind of helpingthem word that properly so that
the editorial team on the otherend understands why.
And yeah, as I mentioned before,that sort of has grown into
project management.
That liaison aspect, um, hasreally grown into project
(04:11):
management, editorialmanagement, which was sort of
that organic response to theindustry as a whole and the sort
of need for more end to endservices in one point of
contact.
Rosie Stewart (04:22):
Mm-hmm
Yeah.
Thank you for that.
I really particularly love thatimage you've given of seeing
yourself as a translator, whichI think is such a helpful
comparison.
Um, I've never really thought ofit in those terms before, but,
um, the proofreading symbols,which we're gonna talk about
more later are really like alanguage in their own right.
Definitely.
And so translator is absolutelythe right word for that.
And that really resonates withthe sort of work that I do for
(04:45):
River Editorial in all theliaison between the different
parts of the process.
Um, so yeah, I'll definitelysquirrel that away.
It's a, an image to come back to
So we've both been working inthe publishing industry for
quite a few years now.
And in that time I've certainlynoticed a lot of changes,
particularly in editorial work.
And the most noticeable is ofcourse the change from hard copy
(05:07):
to electronic proofs.
So is this something that you'venoticed as well?
Kat Mitchell (05:11):
I don't think anyone didn't notice.
Rosie Stewart (05:12):
< laugh> you're right! that's probably saying
the obvious.
Kat Mitchell (05:13):
But I think I do o ften forgetjust how recent that shift was.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, people talkabout in my lifetime, in my
working lifetime< laugh>absolutely is when that really
happened.
M m-hmm< affirmative> a nd Idon't know about you, but I can
still really strongly rememberthat rush of trying to print
(05:35):
out, you know, six levels of 136 page student books ready for
the courier who was gonna arriveat five on the dot.
And so they needed to beprinted, packaged, bound,
labeled< laugh> stick that, youknow, the sort of c ompliments
note in there.
U m, a nd get it ready to go inthat last half h our stretch
right before the c ourier comes.
Rosie Stewart (05:57):
Yeah.
And we used to buy paper by theboxload.
Yes.
You know, chucking it in and itcomes out with the printer, all
lovely and warm and fresh andready to go.
Kat Mitchell (06:04):
Yeah, That smell of printed book, but not quite,
Rosie Stewart (06:06):
Yeah.
Not quite there
Kat Mitchell (06:08):
Without the bounding glue.
Yeah.
And sort of similarly, you know,that anticipation of opening a
set of proofs from a client whenit's come back, how many sticky
notes are you gonna see?
Is there gonna be, you know,pages of red or blue markup,
what are the margins gonna looklike?
Are they gonna be full offreelancers asking questions and
clients responding?
Are there still gonna bequestions outstanding that we
(06:29):
then have to get in touch withanyone about?
Rosie Stewart (06:31):
Yeah.
And I love like I love openingthe, the packaging and then
seeing what you might learn fromthe proofs in terms of maybe the
odd coffee, stain
hints that there's actually ahuman on the other side, which
is, it is quite nice in a way.
Kat Mitchell (06:45):
Absolutely.
We enjoyed the sort ofanticipatory.
It's not anything nefarious.
It is just my dinner last nighton
Rosie Stewart (06:52):
The dog ate my homework type.
Absolutely.
Kat Mitchell (06:55):
ate my homework,
Rosie Stewart (06:57):
The toddler, right.
My homework
Kat Mitchell (06:58):
So getting a little nostalgichere.
I know.
Um, and there's, there'sdefinitely some financial and
especially environmentaladvantages to, to the change
from that to mainly PDF based.
But I do think there's somethingthat still gets a little bit
lost when a set of proofs hasn'tbeen printed out at some point
during the process before goingto press.
(07:19):
And so we do try hard to do thathere, at least once in the
cycle.
Okay.
But yeah, gradually, you know,couriers came less frequently,
request for PDFs grew.
And I think that was around thetime when sort of proofreading
stamps came out.
I know Louise Hornby did a lotof work, um, putting together
some stamps that look just likethe BSI stamps and you could
(07:40):
just use them on a PDF.
So when we were doing that, wehad to make the PDFs, you know,
wide enough with enough marginand, and top and tail to allow
for those side notes still on aPDF.
And then those marks were usedon top, which I think helped a
lot during the transition.
And I know that from, fromanecdotal evidence, at least we
(08:01):
heard that a lot of the offshoretypesetters really were keen to
keep that going, because they'dlearned, as we said, that that
language, the BSI languagethey'd learned that.
And so rather than having tolearn a whole new language
during the transition, it wasjust, Nope, just send us those
BSI marks.
Please keep it,
Rosie Stewart (08:18):
Keep it sort of forming a bridge between the two
methods absolutely.
Kat Mitchell (08:22):
While, but thankfully that sort of
transition was shortlivedbecause those files were
enormous.
Yeah.
Definitely got very stuck withthings and you'd still have to,
I mean, a lot of times you'dstill have to print them out
anyway, because it just waseasier.
But after that, we kind of saw afew proofing platforms that a
few people have tried, butnothing just really was as
robust to beat out the likes ofAdobe who can, you know, with
(08:46):
Reader, they just keep trying toimprove it and get more
efficient with things.
And it's really being able touse those tools, which is what
they're there for and use themin, in a similar way to the BSI
marks, but with the tools thatare, that are there in Adobe.
Rosie Stewart (09:01):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
And we we've definitely overcomequite a few of those problems, I
would say.
And we're reaching a point wherethe PDF markup is the, the
normal way to work.
Although some people do stilllike to print out.
Um, it's definitely been afantastic way of hugely reducing
print output of proofs thatultimately just go straight into
the recycling, cuz they're notused for anything else.
So it's has huge environmentalbenefits.
(09:24):
And so that's definitelysomething to hold onto as well
as hopefully being well it'scertainly it is more efficient
and now that we are more used toit, but it's certainly been a
journey mm-hmm
So I know that in EMC is a veryfast moving environment in
general.
I know some of your turnaroundtimes are very quick and River
and Westchester.
We're also always looking to beas efficient as we possibly can.
(09:46):
So with this in mind, bearing inmind what we just discussed.
Do you think that proofreadersshould still be learning the
traditional proof symbols?
Or do you think that we've movedon from that now?
Kat Mitchell (09:56):
Yeah, it's something that I have to think
about quite a lot.
Cause I'm in a few forums wherethey ask these questions.
Um, and obviously the newgeneration are very much of the
opinion, Well, why do we needto, if we're never going to use
it, whereas the older generationstill understands the kind of
reasonings behind it existing inthe first place.
(10:16):
And you know, as editors, welove to know the origins of
words.
Yeah.
Why not, you know, apply that toprocesses.
That's so true.
So those traditional markupswere, they were a language, they
were a, an art form, a way totalk to typesetters and
designers without having to uselots and lots of words.
Um, you can talk clearly, youknow, exactly what's necessary
(10:37):
because of that, because of themarks and, and what you're
trying to get across.
And I think Acrobat and and PDFshave kind of made us a little
bit lazy in that regard.
Mm-hmm
Rosie Stewart (10:49):
Yeah,
Kat Mitchell (10:50):
Not that anyone in the industry is lazy.
We all work very hard
uh, description of what you wantto get done happen, it's so much
easier now to just kind of writeparagraphs within one sticky
note.
Yeah.
And then whoever is reading itor having to make the change has
(11:11):
to read the entire paragraph.
Rosie Stewart (11:12):
Yeah, when you're scrolling within a comment, you
know, that it, the comment istoo long.
Kat Mitchell (11:17):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Um, and maybe there's, you know,only one salient bit of detail
mm-hmm
So, you know, that kind of thingjust would never have been
considered on printed markupmm-hmm
think, you know, in that sense,we've kind of lost that ability
to be concise and efficient fromthat standpoint.
(11:37):
And obviously we've also lostthe difference between blue and
red markup.
So it's a bit more difficult tokind of track and analyze
quality, you know, with a fullset of traditionally marked
proofs coming back in, you cantell, are they gonna be all
blue?
So was it, you know, justeditorial changes or is it, you
know, a bunch of red typesetterserrors that we need to worry
about the fact that something'sgone wrong at the last proof
(11:59):
stage?
You know, we do obviously keeptrack of the number of comments.
So opening the comments list isquite helpful to just see the
number of comments that comethrough, but you still have to
spend a bit more time kind ofanalyzing what are those
comments were they marked up atthe previous proof stage, um,
kind of flicking back throughdifferent stages to just make
(12:19):
sure that we are doing the bestwe can for our clients.
Rosie Stewart (12:22):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I think it's such a helpfulcomparison to think of the
proofreading symbols is, um,thinking about the origin of
words.
And in that we, we might not usethose original versions anymore,
but understanding them helps usto work better in the present
day.
So, um, I do, I completely agreethat it's still worth learning
those.
And sometimes those symbols arethe most simple way still to
(12:43):
mark something.
You're, you're marking it with ared pencil on screen, but it's
still the same mark and there'sno better way to express that.
So I would absolutely encourageanybody who's, who's getting
into proofreading now to stilllearn those symbols so that they
can still refer to that languageif it's, if it's the most
appropriate way.
But now we also have the benefitof having additional options,
(13:05):
um, and sort of a hybridapproach, I guess, where you
might write a comment, you mightdraw a symbol, you might use the
drawing tools and you don't haveto Tipp-ex it if you get it
wrong, which is the major bonus,especially if you've done
something
Kat Mitchell (13:16):
You across the page,
Rosie Stewart (13:17):
Kat Mitchell (13:20):
Absolutely,
Rosie Stewart (13:21):
Absolutely.
That's great.
And for anyone who's notfamiliar with the red and blue
markup, this would traditionallyhave been done using colored
ink.
So you'd have a row of differentBiros on your desk.
And the red ink would be usedfor typesetter or design errors
in the blue ink would be usedfor copyedit errors.
So the proofs would be verycolorful and you could
immediately tell which waswhich, and there are some ways
(13:41):
you can do that by changing thefont color of comments or
different colored sticky notes,but it it's a bit awkward, I
would say, and it doesn't workquite as well.
So that probably is one way inwhich actually the old system
was, was maybe better.
And I'm sure that we will cometo develop different ways to
manage that, but theredefinitely is still a place for
(14:03):
those types of systems, I wouldsay.
So just to move on to a slightlydifferent topic, at Westchester
and River, we're increasinglybeing asked to provide digital
publishing services andaccessibility features and in
this ever growing space ofdigital publishing and
particularly platform-basedlearning, do you think there's
still a place for traditionalpublishing stages and workflows?
Kat Mitchell (14:25):
Yeah, I mean, you're probably gathering at
this point that I'm pretty oldfashioned.
Not at all thing.
technology.
tech side of it yet.
Most probably, you know, 95% ofwhat we do is, is still very
much print-based.
And although we are, we areseeing more of the impact of
(14:49):
digital now and, and more of theimpact of what publishers want
to do with their printed booksand then move them to digital.
We are sort of seeing the impactof that on schedules and the way
they want to approach the printside of things.
It's still very much thetraditional water flow workflow
of trying to get the qualityfirst, before trying to do
(15:13):
anything technologicallyadvanced with the material that
they've got.
So, you know, you've got a bitof this idea of, of at least our
clients in publishing are, arevery much all about quality over
quantity and that content basis.
So, you know, you've, you'vetechnically got publishing that
you can call Twitter, TikTok,Instagram, all of that is
(15:34):
technically publishing.
Um, and so they are sort of moredigital first, but that element
of quality control and goingthrough the process of making
sure it is exactly the rightmaterial that you want out there
can't really happen.
I don't think without a moretraditional workflow or at least
that a snippet of that within amore traditional workflow.
Rosie Stewart (15:53):
In order to ensure that you're still having
the same levels of quality checkand the development of the
material mm-hmm
So just before we wrap up, it'sbeen fantastic talking to you
and I've certainly learned loadsfrom this conversation, really
enjoyed everything we'vediscussed.
I've got one more question foryou, which is what is one thing,
you know, now that you wish youhad known 10 years ago?
Kat Mitchell (16:16):
Ah, see, you've got the hard hitting questions
at the end.
Rosie Stewart (16:18):
I'm I'm afraid.
So
Kat Mitchell (16:20):
Probably that there's wisdom inexperience, obviously there is
mm-hmm
too late to sort of pause andtry something different or new,
if you think it might help makethings more efficient or work
(16:43):
better.
Rosie Stewart (16:43):
Yeah.
Thank you.
I love that.
And I think that's a really goodsummary really of what we've
discussed today, which islearning from our experience and
from all the knowledge of thepast, but also bringing it into
the present and applying it andfinding new innovations.
So yeah.
Thank you for that.
That's great.
As I said, it's been brilliantchatting with you and hearing
all about your insights from theworld of design.
So thank you so much for joiningme.
(17:04):
For more podcasts fromWestchester publishing services,
UK, just search Westchester words on Spotify, Apple or Google
podcasts or find us on ourwebsite.
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