During the 10 years plus I have been working in print I have had the pleasure of working with people who totally understand the print process but on the other side of the coin are the people who do not. Don’t get me wrong I am not putting anyone down here, in my opinion you have to be a little odd in the first place to find print interesting but in the same way I think it is odd that people find crunching numbers interesting, hence why I outsource my accounts.
I don’t expect everyone to be an expert at print but there are a number of printers that do, they set tight criteria of how artwork must be set up and if it is not exactly correct then they will not accept it. Others will take your artwork and charge you a fee for getting it print ready. 'Hey' I hear you say, 'it printed ok on your office printer so why do you need to pay someone to get it “print ready” for you?'.
Unfortunately when Microsoft were designing their suite of packages they set their criteria for viewing on screen, and what you see on screen is light which is produced in RGB (red green blue) but when it comes to print your artwork will need to be CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and keyplate black) and unless you have a professional program such as photoshop or adobe indesign you will have some difficulty making that conversion.
Next, if you have any images that touch the very edge of your paper you have supply your artwork with “bleed” which is usually 3mm on all edges (even the edges where images don’t touch the edge). This is so your document can be printed oversized and then trimmed down to the correct size so that there are no white edges around your final printed image. If you have one of the above professional program or you are getting your artwork professionally designed your artwork should always be supplied with crops (these are a pattern of lines indicating to the printer where to trim (crop) your design) and bleed (minimum 3mm all around).
If designing yourself make sure all artwork, text and images are at least 300dpi (dots per square inch) this can be quite tricky to check unless you have a professional program (see above) so it pays to be friendly with your printer or print manager so they can check this for you.
Finally before sending your artwork to print, check, check and check again for typo’s. If you can get someone else to proof read it for you all the better as a fresh set of eyes on the artwork are always worth it. If you are using a professional graphic designer don’t presume that he is going to spell check your work for you, he or she will send you a proof before it goes to print and the onus is on you to ensure that all names, telephone numbers, spelling and grammar is correct.
Here’s a little horror story for you:
A few months ago I met a guy at a networking meeting whose marketing leaflet, when it came back from the printers, had over 20 spelling and grammar errors - he was not a happy bunny. There was no way anyone would accept the leaflet as a serious marketing piece so he had to bin all 5000, a very expensive mistake for a fledgling business. He had used his computer spell checker rather than proof reading the text himself and words such as unformed rather than uniformed and there instead of their had crept in.
Alwasy remember, it is not the graphic designer or the printers responsibility to check your work for spelling and grammar errors it is yours.
If you liked the above article and have some questions relating to print please drop me an email to jo@morganpm.biz or give me a call on 01443 472565
