We frequently design marketing material for print and as such are aware of the pitfalls of designing for this media! Unlike web design, once a print design is done, well….it’s DONE! Re-prints are costly and obviously also cause delays which will ultimately have to be passed on to the client.
There are a few simple rules to follow before you send that high resolution file off to the print shop; follow these top money saving printing tips and you won't get any unexpected surprises!
Make sure that artwork is CMYK
This is a very easy thing to overlook, especially when you’ve been in web design mode for days on end! The colour mode used to design for screen viewing is RGB (red, green and blue), whilst for print, all work should be produced in CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black). Whilst the brochure, flyer or business card will still print if it is in the wrong colour mode, it will not be to its optimum. Print presses and digital printers all (with no exceptions) split their colours down into a mix of CMYK, so if artwork is in RGB there will be noticeable differences from what you and, more importantly, your client are expecting the finished piece to look like!
Make sure there’s bleed, crop marks and nothing is too close to the edge
It is important when designing artwork for print that all designs have what is call ‘bleed’ around all edges. Basically this means to ‘extend’ your artwork over the edge of where the guillotine will cut it out (the edge of the page/leaflet). Why? Well, you imagine that a guillotine in a print shop will easily cut through 500 sheets of paper at once, in a big stack! Therefore sometimes the cut can be slightly off. If you don’t add bleed there can be nasty white borders around the edges of your work and that won’t look good at all! Additionally, never position anything too near the edge of the page, such as text. Its best to leave at least 5-8mm, so if the guillotine is slightly ‘off’ you won’t lose anything important.
Make sure your artwork is high resolution
Another difference between print and screen based media is the quality of it, essentially how many pixels it’s made up of! Images on websites are commonly not good enough for printing as they are only made up of 72 dpi (dots per inch) – this is to ensure quick web viewing. All artwork created for print must be at least 300dpi, to ensure crisp and clear reproduction onto your printed stock.
Do a final spell check and get someone who didn’t design the work to check it over
It is down to the client to ‘approve’ artwork and the responsibility does lie with them to ‘sign off’ designs. However, before artwork is proofed to a client it is always best practice to spell check thoroughly (even if they did supply the text). Also, get some fresh eyes to look over the work - when you have been designing something for days on end, it’s surprising what your eyes can miss! Does the text on the exhibition banner line up? Are the images on the brochure all high quality? Is the correct address on the company stationery…both business cards and letterheads!
See a pre-print run sample if possible
We always like to view a pre-print run sample when possible of anything that we handle the print management for here at Destylio. It ensures that everything comes together how you imagined it would and that you have ultimate confidence that you will deliver a fantastic piece of promotional material to your client, on time and as they want it!
