Four Business Card Design Stuff Ups, Which Will Get Your Files Rejected! - Part 2
And we're back! Yes, we're knuckling down into the second Biggest Design Problem. You Could say this next problem is the most gruesome part of the design process, as it has to do with blood!
Or more accurately "bleeding your document"!
Design Problem #2 is "No Bleed in the Document"!
You mean I gotta give blood to get a print job out? Yes we know, some of the terms in the industry can be pretty baffling sometimes! Bleed is when the background graphic or image of a document extends outside the finished size of the printed product to allow for variance in the cutting process.
Guilotines and Book Cutters ("Old Junk" or "New and Improved") can't cut every printed product in precisely the same place. Variations occur. To compensate for this variation we bleed the background over the edge of the document, so if the cutter, cuts slightly bigger you won't get the dodgy result of 'white paper' on the edge of it!
So how to do it?
Now if you have a document which has a background that you wish to run right to the edge of the paper, you will need to make the background go even further past the edge of the document. It should be at least 3-5mm. For business cards and brochures 3mm is all that's needed, but if it's a magazine it should be 5mm. 5mm would be fine for all products. (Better to be safe than sorry!)
You need to know that this is for EVERY SINGLEedge of the paper! So you would have 5mm going past the TOP of your document, 5mm going past the BOTTOM of your document, 5mm going past the LEFT SIDE of your document, 5mm going past the RIGHT SIDE of your document.
Piece of Cake huh?
The weird thing is that so many people get it wrong!
We know that you won't make that mistake now don't we! (wink, wink, nod, nod!)
I'll give you a hint what the next article is...It's opposite to what bleed is....
This article was proudly brought to you by Hollands Print Solutions - the easy print provider! They produce high quality Business Cards, Brochures and Printing Flyers at affordable prices with excellent service! Visit their fantastic site at www.hollands.com.au
Published April 3rd, 2008