A customer said my spine hinges were too tight and it clicked

She told me she had to crack the book open like a walnut to read page one. I backed off the crease by 2mm on the next run and the difference in how pages lay flat was huge. Has anyone else had to unlearn a bad habit after feedback from a buyer?

2 comments

2 Comments

reese5518d ago

Gotta disagree with you there, Joseph. That tight spine was a straight up bad habit. I've had customers return books before because they couldn't get the damn thing to stay open on a desk without cracking the binding. Bumping the crease out 2mm isn't just tuning a job, it's fixing a mistake you probably would've kept making if nobody called you out. Skill is knowing when a spine has to be tight versus when it just makes the book unusable.

josephf109d ago

The 2mm adjustment you made was actually a pretty significant change, but it sounds like it worked out well. One thing I would gently push back on is the idea that you had to "unlearn" a bad habit. I think it's more about learning to listen to what different types of books and customers need. A tight spine is not always a bad thing. For a big thick text or a reference book, that extra tension helps it hold up over time and keeps pages from falling out. You just tuned that specific job to what that customer wanted, which is the real skill.