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Overheard a graphic designer say he sends low-res proofs by default
I was at a Starbucks in Austin last week and caught two freelancers talking about a client who took their high-res logo and ran with it without paying. One guy said he always sends 72 dpi JPEGs as proofs and never hands over the vector files until the last check clears. Has anyone else adopted a similar policy after getting burned like that?
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ross.kim2d agoMost Upvoted
You mentioned the client took the high-res and ran without paying. That's brutal, but here's my question: do you think sending 72 dpi JPEGs actually protects you enough these days? A savvy client could probably upscale those or just screenshot them and get something usable. I've heard stories of designers getting burned even after watermarking everything, so I wonder if the real trick is to make the proof so low quality it's basically useless for anything beyond a quick visual reference. What's your limit on how crappy you'll make the proof look?
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craig.parker2d ago
Anyone else remember when that guy from the Starbucks design team leaked their own holiday cup mockup? I saw it on Reddit and it was just a crappy 72 dpi screenshot of a CAD model, but people still traced it and made knockoff merch. The point being low res only stops the lazy thief, not the determined one.
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