As fierce as it may sound, die-cutting is not a violent undertaking. Its not a secret hazing test for becoming a printer, nor will any one be hurt because of it. Die-cutting is actually like making a cookie-cutter for your printed material.
See, now don’t you feel better about it? Cookies!
Okay, settle down. To be clear, Die-Cutting is a process of creating sharp metal rules to cut shapes out of paper.
Die-cutting is a really important part of the finishing process when you are creating something for print. If you have ever seen a kids menu in the shape of an animal, or an advertisement in the shape of a baseball then you have seen die-cutting. Other very usual examples include, the perforations along the top of a business form, the slits in a folder to insert a business card, or the rounded corners of a business card. Yep, all cut with dies.
In each of these, metal is curved and bent into the desired shape and then placed onto a kind of press that cuts the paper to the form. Die cutting is a fairly flexible technology that can achieve tons of different shapes, the limitation are related to the bending and manipulation of the metal itself. If you have a very complex design in mind, then other options, such as laser-cutting exist. But for most projects die-cutting is the most straightforward and cost-effective.
The cost of die-cutting is generally speaking equivalent to the cost of printing one color on a press. And the process for designing and setting it up is also similar.
Of course as with any large design element, its important to check with your printer about setting the design correctly and preparing the art to make a quality die.
