I never seriously considered using Graphistudio for any of my projects due to the overwhelmingly negative feedback I've gotten about their customer service/turnaround, even though I have seen with my own two eyes just how amazing some of their products are. I am pleased with the other album companies I've been using, but it is becoming more and more apparent that Graphistudio has the edge I'm looking for on a few projects. I'm very torn about whether to give them a go not, and I would very much like some feedback from those of you who are using/have used them.

Despite the negative feedback I've run across before, it seems like they're making an effort at changing their image customer-service wise. Plus, their new pricelist is really compelling.

Thoughts anyone?

we love love love graphi. our rep is awesome, our turnarounds have BEATEN their expectations every single time. i love graphi.

Thanks for saying that I REALLY want to give them a go....just a little hesitant.

no problemo - if you have problems let me know. My rep is the bessssssst!

I 2nd Matt's glowing recommendation. Most OSP veterans are familiar with my ay-hem high standards for my vendors...and I can say I have been very pleased with my experience with Graphi.

I think the trick is to follow the specs they set out for the various album sizes and you won't be disappointed (for example...when they mention that the jpg spreads should be 8 - 18 MB each...if you are coming in way lower than that for a 9x13 book, you're doing something wrong).

I recognized that the U.S. based reps are not really Graphi employees (they are independant contractors, or something like that)...but I've been very happy with my rep. Also, when I've had to e-mail Italy for production support questions...I get very fast responses (knowing that I'm behind them by around 8 hours, I always have had responses within the next business day...typically when I first check e-mail in the morning).

I just placed my first order with graphi, and there WAS some confusion and misunderstandings, but I was a part of that as well... plus since I didn't know how the system works, I was a little unsure along the way. But I must say, since I actually placed the order, I have had GREAT customer support and feedback to my emails. And it looks like the book will be ready way ahead of time. So far so good!

It's true that they don't always have the best customer service and aren't the best at communication - but if you follow the specs to a T you'll be happy with the results. Our clients LOVE their albums - especially those 4x5 guest books! Of course, we design them ourselves, so that helps the client happiness factor some too.

and you're right, the new price list is pretty sweet!

-krista

THanks for your thoughts everyone. You're helping me feel a whole lot better about what I already knew I wanted to do I LOVE those mini albums they have and I haven't found anything else that comes close. Guess I'll be giving them a try!

I just got a sample pack from Graphi and I was horrified. The pages were stuck together and the ink from one page peeled of on to the other page-this happened on every single of the metallic and laminated pages. The pages also peeled apart and in one of the smaller books the entire pages were practically falling out of the book they were so fragile. Also the print quality on some of the images was horrible. There were famous pictures of Bambi Cantrell's that looked yuck. THere is no way Hosea that we would ever use Graphi. I was bummed because I was kind of excited about it all. I hope you have better luck if you use them.

I just sent away for my sample pack. Their new prices put them right square with my current flush mount book printer and I am tempted to give them a go. I may offer one to a bride as "free" upgrade from my current flush mount album just to see how they turn out and what reaction I get from the client. We will see when my sample comes.

Well, I suppose I'm in the minority here. I will NEVER use Graphi again. Ordered two books (client books). The first had to be returned for glaring flaws that never should have been looked over by QC (if it exists). All my left habd side pages had "flaking" along the print edges, and the last pano in the back of the book had an obvious pea sized spot in the sky that looked like someone tried to retouch but didn't know what they were doing.

My second book is still in production. The first PDF was missing images, the cover had the wrong image, and another image was used twice in the layout. I'm not exaggerating! They asked me to re-submit the images, claiming the missing ones were not on my disc (strange, I burned an exact duplicate and they are on mine). So I FTP the supposedly missing images, and they then claim the transfer failed. YET, before I could re-submit AGAIN, the new PDF arrives with the missing images included. Huhhh?!!

My first US rep was pathetic ... NEVER responded to my emails OR calls. She was (hopefully) replaced by a new rep, and he was way better.

I don't have the time or patience to deal with any of this. There are too many competing companies with stellar reputations and superior CS.

Hey Emily

We have been Graphi for three years and we still love them. We've been with them even before they started those 50% promos and we had to pay for the albums for $800 our cost and we were charging $2,000 per wedding...we were so naive! We had our day jobs thank goodness!
Even still, we continued to use them even with high costs. We have had consistent great customer service and products for three years.

Totally my opinion here....
With negative feedback... all companies have them. And it really shouldn't stop you from trying them. We heard nothing but awful feedback with our online lab before we joined in 2005, but we still tried them out. We needed to experience and see it for ourselves. It was actually kind of rough in the first several months, due in part that we had to learn some stuff and we were confused...but we stayed put and we absolutely recommend that company as well. I know this isn't about online labs but you mentioned negative feedbacks so I wanted to give you an example.

If you feel connected to the product/company, try it out. There are so many factors on why companies get negative feedbacks. I would want to hear from both parties, but thats not going to happen so I always try to keep an open mind about that. Whats 3 or 30 complaints on a forum when there are thousands of people using them? Well, there can be hundreds of complaints I guess. We just always go with our gut and think of where we want our company/business to be and who we want to partner with. Its also in how they react to an issue is usually how they win me over. If the product they send looks awful or a client complains, but they correct it with awesome service and a timely manner, then I stick with that company. And get to know your rep. If they're great, then you're off to a good start. If they're terrible, figure out a way to help them be better at their jobs, (thats the way we look at it)...if they're still awful, ask for a different one. If that doesn't work, take it up with the main person. If the company is STILL not willing to help you, then take your business somewhere else.

Like I said, both companies have done well with our experiences and have helped us with our business tremendously, (we've never had to take it up with the main person or ask for a new rep, thank goodness). If the company you choose is just awful all around TO YOU, like you hear from some people's experiences, then stop being with them. I guess we've been lucky that we haven't really stopped using a company because of bad customer service/products. But I know that we have also done our part in helping them out with their vision and understanding it and really communicate with them on what our needs/wants are.

PM me know if you have any more questions!

EDIT: NO, I am not being paid to say all this and NO we are not pampered and treated better than others when it comes to service. But when theres something I believe in or proud to be a part of, I support it wholeheartedly!

We LOVE Graphi!! We ordered about 30 books last year, and didn't need to have any re-prints. We design our own books here, so don't rely on their design team.

The one thing I'll say is that it's super imporant to watch the online trade area to mame sure that they're entering the order correctly at their end. I did have a few issues where they didn't follow instructions properly, and I had to send off emails to ensure that they corrected things before the order was sent out to me.

I've found there to be a bit of a language barrier between some of the Italian employees, but I make sure that my email correspondance to Italy is also copied to my English speaking sales rep.

My sales rep is Michael Lucas - he's very awesome. The girl that he replaced was not the most attentive.....i'm glad she's gone.

T

DON'T ORDER FROM THEM, don't consider taking on their range of books, all the negative feedback you have ever heard or read, believe it, give them a wide berth....

That way you will be driving more and more customers to us folks who have been using them for a few years, 'cos you will be supplying an inferior product!!! ha ha.

Seriously, no other company can compare for digital albums. The only other album company we deal with is Queensbury, for real photographs and mounts. My personal thought's even Queensbury's digital albums are not as good as Graphi's.

Give them a go you will NOT be dissapointed.

Carl

LOL Carl. I was thinking "what the hell is this guy talking about? Graphi rocks!!!"

I also have looked at all of the other album companies. One of the priorities I had in Vegas was to make sure that I checked everyone out to make sure I was using what I consider to be the best. So many of the other album companies just look the same as each other. Not that they all look bad or anything, but they just look the same!

Graphi has a unique look to it, and my clients love them. I attach a nice large price tag to them, and sell them as my premium product. The only other book company that I really loved in Vegas was Pictobook. But, the price jump is quite huge, and they don't have any of the cool little 4x5 books and inexpensive parent copies that Graphi has.

Those pocket books are dynamite for promo books, and my brides buy them like hotcakes to give out to friends.

Whomever is getting bad products or service must either 1) have a bad rep, or 2) not be following the specs they give and maybe giving them files that look like crap to begin with. I don't trust anyone with the design process other than myself and my graphic designer. The final product always kicks ass.

T

So are you implying that those of us who get crap books from Graphi are morons, and simply don't know what we are doing?

That's a pretty absurd statement!

I've only had positive experiences with Graphi. I say try it and decide for yourself through your own personal experience, since it seems you have quite a variety of experiences here. You decide...

for someone starting out, who do you recommend we look at in addition to Graphi?

Dude, show me where I said that you guys are morons. I'd never say that.

I know without a doubt that SOME people send files out for printing (to places like Graphi, Pictage, etc....) and expect a brutal pic to be fixed just because the company states that it does color and density correction.

It's also a well known fact that one person's "good color" is not another person's "good color". Anyone who is leaving the color correction up to the lab is opening themselves up for dissatisfaction. The way things look are so subjective.

Long and the short of it is that if you do your own color corrections and your own designs, chances are very slim that you'll have any issues. Of course - not saying that you won't have ANY issues....all manufacturers are going to let some mistakes fall through the cracks.

I think that getting over 30 books in one year without any quality issues is a pretty good track record. I did have a few invoice errors, but those were looked after immediately after I brought it to their attention.

If you read my email, I also said that one of the reasons for problems COULD be because of your rep. I had a bad rep when I first started with them a couple of years ago, and while there were not any quality issues, there was a serious problem with custoemr service.

Please don't jump to any conculusions and think that I'm calling anyone a moron. Just the same, it's not fair to dis a manufacturer just because of a bad experience. Every manufacturer will have a percentage of problem orders....the key is that even if they have a problem, they are more than willing to fix the problem.

Who do you use for books?

im going to have to chime in, merely for the fact that i hope this can prevent even one person from having a similar experience as me.

from the bottom of my heart... i HIGHLY recommend staying away from graphi. part of me really doesnt want to post such a negative review but as joy pointed out, when you have such a strong experience with a company it's hard not to share (although the nudd's have had a way different experience obviously).

i have received orders with ripped pages, pages out of order, different leather covers than what i ordered, different styles than what ive ordered, etc.

every business makes mistakes (even me!), and i lived with them the first few. mostly because my rep (michelle) treated me so well. my biggest problem with them is the same thing as everyone else... the lack of customer service. they NEVER call you if there is a problem or question on the order form. the pages are blatantly out of order and obvious? oh well, ship it anyway because no one actually looks at it! this album has pages stuck together? ship it out because we don't look at them (someone else already eluded to experiencing this same thing). the time i turned sour was when someone in the company told me "do you have any idea how long it would take us to actually proof the albums before shipment or to call photographers if there were questions on the order form?"

to me they've turned into the new pictage. they've obviously grown to a much higher population and cannot offer good customer service. the US reps they have work hard and are great (again, i have nothing but the best to say about my rep michelle), but they are just damage control between you and the company.

classic example - alisha placed orders with zookbinders and la-vie the same time i placed an order with graphi. zookbinders called two different times because they had questions about the order form and la-vie called once because the spelling of the church didn't look right. they were calling to double check the spelling of the church because they thought it looked questionable!!!! i, on the other hand, placed my order with graphi. i get one full album, 2 parent albums, and 4 gift books back from them with the opening spread a cutting cutting shot. i cant believe no one saw that the cake cutting shot was the first spread and MAYBE something was wrong with that?

i want to leave with one last thought -

i have been contemplating my own cart for re-print orders for a while because ive heard such good stories from friends. i made a post a while back asking people for suggestions and becker immediately emailed me and basically told me that id be an idiot for using a business that had so many unhappy customers. looking back and being in the same situation with graphi i totally agree with him.

just my 2 cents!

graphi is interesting because it's different but i've never seen a graphi book that had great color. but it seems like a lot of photographers either don't know what good color is, or they don't care.

i have had limited dealings with graphi, but they have all been negative. there service is marginal at best. i also think the books are cheap looking and appeal to a lower caliber client.

that's just my 50 cent. if you are having good luck with them more power to ya!

Fact: Oprah Winfrey as well as other celebrities and high profile people happen to own Graphi albums.

Opinion: I have heard and read that many of the above own Queensberry and other album companies as well

you would think, by now, these companies were aware of these forums and would push their CS to the hilt to get good publicity within the applicable community. such as the infamous 'blu domain email' thread started a while back which has lived on longer than blu probably ever thought possible.

i think it is highly important that people within this industry publish their experiences with vendors, good or bad, especially for the new comers who CANNOT AFFORD to make mistakes.

if i were to have to cover the cost of a poorly made album, it would be saltines and peanut butter for a week!!!!!!!


so, i appreciate reading these, keep 'em coming! it all helps to form my alliance with particular vendors adn the whatnot.

I do appreciate your thoughts because in spite of the "different look" and hype about the new pricelist, I really am after the highest quality I can find.

In your opinion, which album company (or companies) do the best overall with their color, quality, & service?

No matter what album company you use, you are best off sending them files that are already color corrected so that you'll know exactly what you'e getting back.

My files from Graphi look exactly like files that I have printed here at my local lab. I don't let my local lab or Graphi touch the files for color correction, and thereore have never had any color issues.

Any time you let anyone color correct yourself for you, you open yourself up to a high chance of being disappointed. color is super subjective.

I've sold Graphi books for over $7500. Even for the lowest page count, I don't sell them less than $2400. So, I'm not sure what you consider to be a low end client, but I don't really consider $7500 to be a low end client. No one has ever complained about a book not having good color or not having a good quality....not even my pickiest client.

When we were flying back from Jamaica a couple weeks ago and we were riding the airport shuttle I heard a lady on her cell phone complaining about Delta. She had been delayed, transferred, or whatever and she was obviously very unhappy. She swore to the person on the other end of the phone, and to all of us on the bus, that she would never ever ever fly Delta again.

So there I sat, thinking to myself, "will I take this woman's poor experience with Delta into consideration when I fly next week? Or the week following? Will I consider it next month or next year?"

Then I thought about the hundreds of thousands of people who are Delta SkyMiles members and would never think of flying with anyone else.

As Joy mentioned above, we've been using Graphi for the past 3 years and we've been very pleased. They have gone the extra mile for us and we have gone the extra mile for them, and it's been that way from the beginning...even when I was a shy newby.

I remember one time a couple years ago when we were just getting started and toying with the idea of going full-time. At that point we had only ordered a couple of their books, and didn't know any of their staff, but one of the reps spent nearly an hour with me on the phone talking about what they were doing in their company, asking what we were doing in ours, and trying to convince me to attend a Yervant/Joe B seminar in Miami. And it wasn't even my rep...she was from a different region!

I've thought back to that conversation several times and considered what was in it for them. Not much at all. Out of approx 200 at the seminar, what was one more? Like I mentioned above, I may have been a shy newby, but in that conversation they made a customer for life.

It's always intersting to sit on the forum sidelines and read the positives and negatives from people when it comes to products and services. Pictage. Blu Domain. Graphi. The list could go on and on. Forums are very polarizing. People who dislike a product will post negatively and people who love a product will counter by posting positively. The discussion goes back and forth and rarely do the people in the middle post anything.

Ultimately everyone ends up arguing and no one is better off or worse off because most people disregard what's said unless they have experience with or a vested interest in the topic and in most cases their minds are already made up.

I feel bad for those who have had poor experiences with Graphi, just as I feel bad for those who have had poor experiences with Picto, Zook, LaVie, LC, Pictage, etc. It makes no difference what company I prefer, the nature of this industry is that we are all super busy, running 100 mph and we don't have time to give our business to anyone who offers anything less.

As Joy said, we've loved Graphi since the first time we saw their books. We're not niave enough to think there aren't other top-knotch album companies out there, but we've been thrilled with the books and pleased with the service, and our clients feel the same way. Graphi has been a true grand slam for us.

If they mess up, we'll give them another chance. If they do it again and again and again, we'll start looking elsewhere.

Nicely put!!

Can I book you for that?

I will try to be really nice, but it's going to be hard. I have had three returns for the same album from Graphi Studios just recently. First, a scratched cover. Returned. Second, they sent the book with the incorrect paper selection. The third was the wrong color of binding (blue instead of black). Neadless to say, the bride is upset, Graphi is making me look bad, and who knows what the bride is saying about me to her friends (even though it wasn't my fault). The worst thing of the matter is that I was nice the first two times they screwed up and then told them the third time that they need to compensate me for the hassle, (along with a note about telling other photographers of my experience) they e-mailed me back inferring that I was being unprofessional and that they pride themselves with dealing only with professional photographers. I was only hoping for an apology and maybe some compensation for the trouble and making me look bad in front of the client. Oh, and they always pass me off to Italy with a "that's not our department" attitude. Then Italy takes their time getting back with me, eventually. Neadless to say, I'm in the market for a new album company. Unfortunately, I have already shown my brides the Graphi albums as my product. Is there something comparable, especially in the way of the metalic covers? PLEASE HELP! I have to exchange all my samples as soon as possible with a reliable album company that doesn't get defensive when I encounter a problem.

Garrett, would 5 out of 7 books constitute doing it again and again?! That's how many times I've had issues with Graphi & had to send a book back. Having said that, for some reason I'm sticking with them! Yes, I've had to return books because they have poor quality control before it leaves them but the support I've received from a particular lady I deal with in Italy has been outstanding and I recently received a free reprint of a 30x40, 80 page book because of ongoing problems I'd been having. They really do have to step up their game though because each time I receive something I'm holding my breath looking through it hoping there's nothing wrong with it and that really should NOT be the case. I'm going to give them a few more tries but if it does continue I'm not going to have any choice but to look elsewhere because it's too inefficient for me having to return products so regularly.



Would really love to know who you're using please. That's not me being sarcastic, that's me genuinely interested in who you're using!!


I'd love to do what Joe Buissink does and charge a huge amount for just coverage & proofs and then not expect my clients to come back to me for anything but that! Sadly, when I move to Cyprus there's no way I can get out of album production.

I've been very happy with Graphi, I've been using them for almost 2 years and have never had a problem...