There are plenty of great sites out there to get you inspired to create a new design to promote your business. But when it comes to the hard work of making your design a physical reality, then consider these printing tips for making it work in print.
Mind the bleed
Do you have an extra eighth of an inch or so of your design extended around the perimeter of your card? If you don’t want an open gap where your design should run seamlessly to the edge, then you need to have bleed in your design. Bleed is an area that extends beyond where you intend to trim in order to result is a nice clean edge. More information on Bleed here.
Keep Your Edges Safe
Much like having bleed along the outside of your image, its important to allow for a safe-zone of about 1/8″ inside your project area as well. This is a way to compensate for the inevitable shifts that can occur on various presses and cutters when a printed project is produced. Allowing a little space inside your design ensures that no text or images will be accidentally trimmed when, for example, a digital press heats and stretches a design, or a cutter shifts slightly inward. The more flexible your design in this regard the more assurance you can have that your production team will produce a beautiful end product.
Open Your Fonts
You have found a beautiful thin font that reflects your vision of your company perfectly. You apply it to all of your business card text, and it looks perfect on screen. We are all for it. But will it look perfect once its printed? Thin fonts can on occasion be too thin to print. The natural spread of ink on a porous sheet of paper will leave that beautiful little font looking wilted, smudgy and illegible. What to do? Well first check with your printer to see if the font will be problematic. And if it seems like it may be, then try increasing not the font size itself, but the stroke size of the line. An increase of a single point may look a bit too much on screen, but will end up printing clear and clean in your project.
Care About Your Paper
Thick or thin, gloss or matte, bright white or deep black, its important to consider your paper right from the outset. Perhaps its a by-product of our computer rooted culture, but we find a number of clients try to do everything in their designs through the printing and leave the paper selection as an afterthought. But paper choice can change everything for a business card–consider the feel of the card and the value it portrays. In addition, paper choice can help you save on ink use and in some cases by choosing a colored paper you can eliminate the need for a run of ink all together. The possibilities with paper choice is all but unlimited, so if you have questions be sure and talk with your printer and paper provider.
Know Your Colors
Color choice can be one of the most fun but challenging aspects to any print project. Aside from just making sure they look fantastic, you need to be certain they will print exactly as you want them. The key to this is to be aware of how you are going to print them and what color space you need to be using. If you are going to be printing digitally, then you have the most flexibility in choosing your colors, but be aware that if you are laying out your project in an RGB color space, then the colors that are printed may not match up exactly with what you saw on screen. If your project is going to go on press, than you have to be a bit more careful with your selections. Your final file will need to include the colors that you are going to use. If you are going to be printing in CMYK process, then your file needs to separate into those inks. And if you are choosing PMS colors, than you need to be certain that those colors are embedded in your file. And you need to be sure that they match the paper type you are using – coated or uncoated.
These tips should help ensure that your design gets printed the best it can. If you are unsure about something or are just overwhelmed by the number of choices then be sure to ask your printer for help. As always feel free to ask some questions below.
