Everything You Need to Know About Print Design
Graphic designers spend huge amounts of time and resources getting the design work right. The last thing you want to hear is that, once all the files have been signed off, they come back from the printers blurred.
I’ve been lucky enough to have spent a lot of time working in a print shop, and during that time I picked up quite a lot of information that I rarely discussed within the broader design community. Unfortunately, unless you’re specifically seeking this information, a lot of design courses, tutorials and guides don’t cover print design.
It’s so important that you understand at the least the basics of print design, both if you’re a graphic designer or if you’re looking to hire one. Understanding the fundamentals will put you in a good position when it comes to sending (or receiving) final design files.
Difference between RGB and CMYK
Something that surprisingly isn’t common knowledge in the digital design community is that the system a PC uses to interpret colour isn’t the same system that printers use. A computer will use RGB, which is a combination of red, green, and blue, whereas a printer will use CMYK. CMYK is a combination of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. The black is actually referred to as “Key”, hence the K, in case you were wondering where that came from.
Fun Fact: The Key is used to align the other three colours, which ensures that all the elements are in perfect order. The word “black” isn’t used because a B, as in CMYB, may be confused for blue.
The thing to remember here is that the RGB system can produce a greater range of colour, more so than most printers. If your file is going to be digital-only, make sure your software is set to RGB. If it’s for print, set it to CMYK. A general rule of thumb is to send off final versions to clients in both colour formats, to cover all bases.
Keep an Eye on Resolution
When working digitally or on the web, resolution isn’t much of an issue. But when it comes to creating something for print, your document’s resolution is integral to the overall quality of the print.
If what you’re working on is going to be sent to print, the most important attribute you need to worry about is the DPI, which stands for Dots Per Inch. As the name suggests, the DPI determines how many dots a printer will create in one square inch of a printed page.
In general, the best practice is to set your document’s DPI to 300. There’s no real upside to going any higher. In reality, a document with a DPI of anything above 300 will just be unnecessarily large, and potentially a pain to edit.
You may have also seen the acronym PPI when setting up a document. This refers to Pixels Per Inch, and as such is concerned with digital design, as opposed to print design. It works in the same way as DPI, but is just the digital equivalent.
Document Scaling
How well your documents scales when it’s sent to print is essential, and arguably one of the most important factors that you need to consider. Whilst a design may look perfect on your monitor, there’s a chance that it won’t in print.
The reason you’ll more often see serif fonts in books, magazines and manuals is that they scale down much nicer than a sans-serif font. This is due to there being less curvature and rounding in serif fonts, verses sans-serifs.
And in addition, if you’re working on something that’s going to be small when printed, a business card, for example, it’s generally best practice to avoid light or thin fonts, as these may become distorted when it comes to printing.
Another thing you need to consider is imagery. If you’re working with a raster document (a raster is a document that’s comprised of pixels, and as such can only be safely scaled down) you need to ensure that it’s the correct size. If you have a 3in wide raster document, but it needs to be printed at 10in, it will come out extremely blurry.
Don’t Ignore Bleed
This was actually something that I often overlooked when it came to preparing documents for print, but something that always came back to bite me.
When a printer cuts down a document to the size it needs to be, they sometimes make mistakes. This is why bleed exists. Document bleed is essentially some extra overhang on all edges of a document, past the point in which a cut is going to take place. This overhang allows for a final, cut document to be printed edge to edge, without any blank page being visible.
The amount of bleed that each printer needs can differ from machine to machine. If you know where your document is being printed before you start work on the design, it’s best to ask them how much bleed space they need in advance. This will speed up the process, and save you time later down the road if/when you have the incorrect bleed amount on the document.
Proofreading is Vital
Proofreading isn’t something that’s exclusively related to print design, but however, it is a vitally important aspect to keep in mind.
A spelling, grammatical or kerning error in a digital product isn’t the end of the world, it can always be fixed. But an error in a printed document is final. There’s no going back and editing the document without also having to throw away everything that’s already been printed.
Of course, running a spellchecker on your document is important, but doing this is only one step of the process. You should spend some time manually reviewing your document once it’s been compiled. You’ll be surprised how many issues your PC doesn’t pick up. If it’s possible, ask a dedicated proofreader to review the copy too. Don’t be surprised if they leave a bunch of symbols on your print-out though!
During the proofreading process, print off a physical copy of the document if possible. Physically having the document in your hands makes it, I find anyway, easier to spot mistakes and errors. Doing this also lets you identify any typographical errors, such as kerning issues.
Hopefully that has helped you to get a firmer grasp on what needs to be done to prepare your design work for printing!
If there’s anything else you’d like to know about the printing process, or preparing a document for print, then please feel free to get in touch to suggest a topic!