Terri Tomlinson
I hired Spartan to print a color piece for me. They were given the art, a physical go-by as well as a custom made die for cutting. For some reason, they changed the size of my piece and added a white border to it. They brought in a larger die-cut as well, without reaching out to me or having any discussion about it. I went in for 2 press checks and everything looked great. I saw my artwork on a white background. When my delivery arrived it was the wrong size and had a white border. It was devastating. I sell this piece globally, it is trademarked. I can't just change it. Why on earth would any professional printer change the art on a job? They had a go-by in their hands the whole time. How did no one think to ask about it? Spartan told me that I approved the job and therefore it was my fault. They sent me an email exchange that had notes about the changes buried in it. No highlighting, no heads up that there were notes forwarded in an email.... They took no responsibility at all. They said the pdf proof had a blue line around it and I should have noticed it and understood what it was. Everyone I have spoken to since in the commercial printing world agrees that Spartan botched it on many levels. After much prompting, they said they didn't use my die-cut because they didn't think it would work. Other questions I had about how this series of mistakes happened were ignored. Because time was an issue I printed a second run with them using my original art and my custom die. The finished product is perfect. Why this wasn't done the first time is beyond me. If they would have used my die it would have all been fine. Not a great experience. Costs were double and instead of 4-5 weeks, this job took 12.