A design that looks perfect on your screen can still fail at the print shop: text cut off at the edge, a blurry photo, colours that look muddy, a white line along one side. Print shops and branding companies in Ghana often say in their adverts that they want designers who understand print and can prepare files for production. This lesson teaches the basics so your files print right the first time.
Talk to the printer first
Before you design anything for print, ask the printer:
- What size is the finished item, and in what units?
- How much bleed do you need?
- What file type do you prefer, usually PDF?
- Do you want colours in CMYK?
- How should fonts be handled? Many shops ask you to embed fonts in the PDF or convert text to outlines, sometimes called curves, so their computer does not swap your font.
Printers differ, and their answers matter more than any general rule.
Three areas on every print design
- Trim line: where the paper will be cut to the finished size.
- Bleed: extra background that extends past the trim line, commonly about 3 mm on each side. Paper shifts slightly when cut, so bleed prevents thin white edges.
- Safe area: an inner margin, often a few millimetres inside the trim line, where all important text and logos must stay so nothing is cut off.
So an A5 flyer, finished at 148 by 210 mm, would be designed at 154 by 216 mm with 3 mm bleed on every side.