• Build documents according to Pronk/client specifications.
• Ensure that all assigned tasks are completed on time and according to master specifications/guidelines.
• Communicate the progress of projects with Production Coordinators.
• Report all production-related problems to the Production Manager.

The successful candidate will have:

• A degree/diploma in graphic design or related field.
• High level of proficiency in InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator.
• The ability to work on multiple projects, be detail-oriented and able to meet tight deadlines.

Please send resume and salary expectations to careers@pronk.com. Please quote ‘Production Artist’ in the subject line.

Pronk&Associates and Summer Street Press, two trusted companies with more than 40 years of experience in the educational publishing industry, are teaming up to provide the finest one-stop service available. Our combined resources make for a versatile lineup of people and skills dedicated to ensuring the success of your projects. Well-practiced in Literacy, Language Arts, Social Studies, Math and Science for all grades K–12, we have the know-how to get your print and digital projects done on time, on budget, on spec, and on the mark—no matter how big or how small.

www.pronksummerstreet.com

OCTOBER 13, 2009—Pronk&Associates (Toronto, ON) and
Summer Street Press (Stamford, CT), announced today that they have partnered to provide superior full-service editorial, design, and production capability across all formats and learning areas for K–12 publishing clients.

This strategic partnership offers publishers the opportunity to work with an experienced, creative, and tech-savvy team to tackle the challenges of 21st-century publishing head-on. Providing full service in all areas—conceptualization, prototyping, e-learning, writing, editing, design, image acquisition, production, project management—at competitive prices and with the effective management that has long been the hallmark of both companies, the Pronk Summer Street partnership is a unique turnkey solution for publishers.

According to Summer Street Press co-founder and president, Nick Mandelkern, “It’s become clear that we are at a tipping point in the K–12 marketplace. Business as usual cannot be ‘the usual’ any longer. Publishers and developers alike are having to think differently, to work together differently, and to create different products.”

Gord Pronk, founder and president of Pronk&Associates, explained: “Pronk and Summer Street have worked together for years. We are able to integrate our processes to provide high-capacity and high-quality service to our clients. With the combined expertise of our two trusted editorial groups, award-winning designers, e-learning developers, image acquisitions teams, and production specialists, we have the resources and skills to help our clients succeed.” Added Mandelkern, “Together we can lower the barriers between editorial, print, and technology. And together Pronk and Summer Street are uniquely positioned to help create the differentiating products that will transform our marketplace.”

About Pronk

One of North America’s largest and most respected full-service solutions providers for educational publishers, Pronk’s skilled staff provides expertise in developing, designing, and producing K–12 student and teacher materials. Guided by their mission statement, “inspiring the student,” Pronk has earned a reputation for passion, commitment, and exceeding expectations. Pronk is based in Toronto, with offices in Chicago and Pune, India.

About Summer Street

One of the country’s leading content development companies, Summer Street Press produces K–12 educational resources. Since its beginnings in 1997, its mission has been to develop books and digital products that engage students, teachers, and parents. Summer Street has had a significant role in creating market-leading basal and supplemental programs across the curriculum. Summer Street Press is based in Stamford, Connecticut.

Give us a call! We’d love to talk about how we can assist you with your next project.

Pronk&Associates
Gord Pronk, President
416 441–3760 ext203
Facsimile: 416 441–9991
gord@pronk.com
www.pronk.com

Summer Street Press
Nick Mandelkern, President
203 325–2217 ext12
Facsimile: 203 325–2218
nick@summerstreetpress.com
www.summerstreetpress.com

Need to make a big splash? We can give your
next design project the impact it needs!

So what makes Pronk design so special anyway?

The Pronk design team strives to raise the bar on creativity. Our mission is to work with you to create exciting and dynamic materials to engage today’s students and educators. We’re committed to finding fresh, intelligent design solutions for all of your print and digital projects. We know you’re not interested in the same old boring ideas — we’re ready to wow you with new ones! Want to really know how awesome we are? Read our Fan Mail here.

Slow is not our style. We can slow down when we retire. In the meantime, if you need a top quality, inspired prototype done at breakneck speed, we’re your team. We eat insane deadlines for breakfast.

The accident was most likely due to a misinterpretation of the term “world’s fastest designer.” Mark is doing much better now and is grateful for all the get well cards.

We’re all a little “different.” We each come from different backgrounds and have different ideas about what makes a great design. Sure, this may result in some fiery in-house design discussions, but that’s great news for you. In the end, you will get plenty of variations to choose from.

Senior designer Joe prepares for
an internal design meeting.

The Pronk design team wins awards. ‘Nuff said.
Here are a few.

Senior Designer, archaeological oddity

We may rib Joe about being an old fogey, but the fact remains — with over 30 years of experience in the business, he knows when he’s found just the right solution for your project.

During his off hours, you can find him at the gym or working on his personal art.

Senior Designer, bogey boy

When not manacled to his desk, David can either be found in fruitless pursuit of a little white ball or designing punk CD covers.

Having fulfilled his lifelong ambition of breaking 80, he can now concentrate on creating more jaw-dropping designs for you.

Senior Designer, rocketeer

When his feet are firmly back on the ground, Mark finds solace in canoeing and the constant pursuit of the perfect typeface.

What’s Mark’s secret for producing 20 years’ worth of amazing designs? He admits he often looks to his dancing hula girl for inspiration. For some reason it works!

Designer, sci-fi nerd

The Pronk team is indeed fortunate that avowed country girl Linda makes the trek to the big city five days a week to create top-of-the-line design work for our clients.

After work, Linda trundles back to her pastoral home to recharge her batteries by pursuing nature photography, gardening, hiking, and canoeing.

Designer, devil with the details

Some might call him bull-headed, but really Vince is just a devil when it comes to sweating the details of your job. He is proof that an obsessive personality can be a positive thing — whether it’s applied to cars, architecture, or meeting another crazy deadline.

When you need perfection at a moment’s notice,
Vince is your man. Well, he’s OUR man, but you can borrow him!

Designer, cheer squad captain

When he’s not at the top of a human pyramid, Shaun can usually be found painting, sculpting, or taking photos. He’s an avid outdoorsman and is perpetually trying to rope others into running, climbing, or cycling their way to pain and suffering.

Shaun is also an unabashed nerd and is obsessed with all things design.

Designer, dance dance revolutionary

While Joanna is fully capable of dancing her way to a perfect 300 combo score in Dance Dance Revolution in a wedding dress, her true strength lies in her incredible creativity and passion for design.

Joanna is most likely to be seen knitting, sewing, or rolling around in piles of fabric.

Coordinator, design wrangler

Jamie has over a decade of experience in the Pronk Design rodeo. She is the voice for our clients’ wants and needs, ensuring their design projects stay on schedule and on budget.

When not slinging her lasso, Jamie can usually be found parenting her two adorable children, pulling weeds, and listening to music — often all at the same time. Always the multi-tasking marvel!

Big Kahuna, shark wrestler

Gord Pronk not only possesses more than his share of adrenaline, he has oodles left over to share with all who come in contact with him.

He brings the same limitless enthusiasm to whatever he pursues — whether it be serving our clients’ needs, downhill skiing, or taking down a killer great white.

Production Artists, Photo Researchers, Coordinators, Art Buyers, Proofreaders, other support staff.

Warning: may
contain nuts.

Please give us a call. We’d love to work with you to make your digital
and print products stand out.

Domestic quality at off-shore prices

With today’s tight budgets, off-shore production is a fact of life. Pronk&Associates is pleased to offer the top-quality, hassle-free production work expected from our North American offices—at off-shore prices.

When Pronk&Associates opened an office in Pune, India, in 2006, we created a seamless extension of our Toronto studio. Our India staff, an exceptional team of graphics professionals, consistently deliver the same high-quality product that we provide in Toronto and Chicago.

Through superior training, stringent quality assurance, and strong communication between our North American and Pune teams, we have created an off-shore workflow that delivers India pricing with high quality work and no headaches.

The Pronk India difference

Here’s how we can offer a North American experience and product at off-shore prices:

Project management in Toronto

We deal with the hassles of international communication so you don’t have to. For production work in India, all client communication is handled by your assigned production coordinator in Toronto. The production coordinator ensures your guidelines and schedules are followed, conducts weekly update meetings, and troubleshoots any issues that may arise. Read our Pronk Fan Mail for testimonials about our fabulous production coordinators.

Our workflow

Each project has a dedicated project management team. The team consists of the production manager, who oversees all composition work done in Toronto, Chicago, and Pune; a production coordinator based in Toronto; a project team leader in the Toronto office, who works directly with a project leader in Pune; and the Pune office supervisor.

• At the beginning of each project, the production coordinator works with you to ensure all necessary guidelines, files, and start-up information have been received.
• A Toronto production team leader is assigned to the project to review the files; set up the file structure; and prepare the files, design templates, and style guidelines for Pune—all to your specifications.
• In the Pune office, a project team leader is assigned and begins working directly with the Toronto team leader.
• As the project moves forward, the Toronto team leader continually monitors all pages coming from Pune and provides supervision and feedback to ensure your needs are being met. With this close communication between Pune and Toronto and the integrated workflow, you are assured of accuracy matching Pronk’s domestic quality.

Exceptional quality assurance processes

The Pune office has two Toronto-trained quality assurance staff, who follow the same stringent processes that we use in our Toronto office. This consistency helps to maximize both efficiency and quality, so that our Pune team works to the same standards as our domestic quality assurance team. All project updates, examples, and global changes are posted and updated in real-time via Pronk’s Quality Assurance intranet site. This practice facilitates seamless communication of project updates and status to our India quality assurance team.

Training, training, training

Ongoing training is one of the core values of Pronk&Associates. Training never stops and even the most experienced staff in all locations continue to hone their skills and learn new techniques and new applications.

Our training program

We train our Pune staff through a rigorous ongoing education program that provides many different opportunities for skills development to occur. There are two key ways in which we train Pune staff:

1. We bring Pune staff to Toronto for a three-month term during which they work and train in the Toronto office. This work term achieves the following goals:
   • Expose Pune staff to the pace and energy of the Toronto work environment
   • Build a close relationship and connection with Toronto staff
   • Foster a clear understanding of Pronk values including a sense of pride in our work
   • Familiarize Pune staff with North American culture
2. We send key Toronto staff to Pune to provide extended training.
   Here are some examples:
   • Stanley Tran, production manager, and Andrew Garcia, senior production artist, traveled to Pune when the office was opened, to provide start-up training. Stanley has been back several times to provide further training.
   • Francis Cowan, QA supervisor, went to Pune to train the Pune QA staff. Francis continues to provide feedback and training from Toronto.
   • Jessie Lin, our most senior and experienced Toronto production team leader, recently completed a six-month stint in the Pune offices, providing valuable, ongoing on-site training.

Stanley, Jessie, and Francis spend time in Pune to provide in-depth training.

A better off-shore philosophy

Our Indian business model allows us to offer quality off-shore work through superior training and staff retention.

The guiding principles we used to build our India office enable us to hire, train, and retain a team in India that turns out production work to North American standards.

• Control the hiring and hire the best. We control the hiring, workplace culture, and training practices of our Indian team to guarantee a stable, reliable, well-trained staff. To do this, we went to India to personally interview and choose each member of our team.
• Know the team to ensure we use everyone to their best advantage. We want to truly understand the exact skill set of each individual who works for us. We want to be intimately involved in all aspects of each individual’s training so that we can create efficient, stable, talented project teams.
• Retain employees so the skill of the team grows. Our top priority from day one was to achieve extremely high employee retention levels, in sharp contrast to Indian vendors that use the multi-shift, high-volume model. We have accomplished this goal through on-going training, implementing a single shift, and fostering a close link to our Toronto office. As a result, we have been very successful at building a stable, loyal group with a high level of career satisfaction and pride in the work they produce.
• Leverage Pronk-developed technologies and processes. In Toronto, we use a great number of proprietary techniques, technologies, and scripts to streamline and automate our production processes. We also have an enormous amount of client-specific experience and product knowledge. By establishing our own Indian group, we have achieved the goal of seamless composition so that you get the highest quality at the prices you need.

North American equipment

We purchase our workstations, servers, tape backup systems, and software in Toronto. This equipment is configured and tested in Toronto and then crated and shipped to India. The equipment is accessed remotely from Toronto for upgrades and routine maintenance.

All workstations are equipped with a PowerMac G5 and a 23-inch Apple monitor.

We have the following equipment in our Indian office:

• HP server with two terabytes RAID 6 central storage
• LTO-2 tape backup library
• PowerMac G5 with 4 GB RAM
• 23-inch Apple Cinema display
• Gigabit Ethernet network
• 4Mbps of dedicated Internet connection

We’d love to discuss how together we can ensure the success of your off-shore production and full service projects.

Pronk takes home top design award

and wins SMART Technologies bid

With our winning bid to create 80 K–9 SMART Board lessons for SMART Technologies, Pronk&Associates is developing lessons for some of the latest technology available for the classroom. Our successful submission combined strong instruction with fun, creative interaction that used the features of SMART’s Notebook 10 software.

We are using our outstanding creative know-how and in-house interactive whiteboard (IWB) expertise to produce these dynamic, informative, functional, and attractive lessons—fast and economically. Keeping in mind the different learning needs in every classroom, we have designed our IWB lessons to be easily adaptable by teachers.

Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) Team

Our IWB development team includes editors specializing in K–12 educational products, designers, Flash developers, and production artists—all of whom have received advanced Notebook 10 software training from SMART Technologies.

Pronk’s photo research group and art buyers work with the team to provide appropriate visuals for use in IWB lessons and our capable project managers ensure a smooth workflow that meets schedule and budget needs. Our dynamic team and efficient workflow mean we can create lessons that are engaging, age and level appropriate, directly linked to curriculum standards—and that fit your budget. Our exceptional services have prompted our clients to give us rave reviews. Read our Fan Mail here.

A Range of Options

In addition to maximizing the potential of the built-in features of Notebook 10 software, Pronk&Associates can…

• develop IWB tools for any brand of IWB
• design a consistent, attractive, program-specific look for your IWB lessons
• create eye-catching and instructive Flash animations
• commission new art or use company-owned assets to enhance the instructive value of your IWB lessons
• find and permission eye-catching photos for your IWB lessons 
• add IWB lessons to your program as it is developed by Pronk’s full service group

Training

Pronk belongs to the SMART Development Network, and our staff attends SMART professional development seminars and webinars when available.

Benefits to You

• Development of IWB lessons by a full-service educational publishing vendor means you get a team that understands the needs of teachers and students.
• Having all services under one roof eliminates redundancies and miscommunication that often plague a multi-vendor workflow.
• Pronk’s award-winning creative team will deliver the extra edge you’re looking for.