4 Business Card Design Blunders, Which Will Grind Your Print Project to a Halt! - Part 2
And we're back! Yes, we're knuckling down into the second Biggest Design Problem. In fact "Knuckling down" may not be that far off topic! Cause we're gonna talk about drawing some blood...
Or more accurately "bleeding your document"!
Design Problem #2 is "No Bleed in the Document"!
Come on dude I get queasy easy! Yes we know, some of the terms in the industry can be pretty scary! When we talk about bleeding your document, it means when the background graphic or image 'bleeds' over the edge of the page. It's to allow for the cutting tolerance of equipment.
Guilotines and Book Cutters ("Old Junk" or "New and Improved") can't cut every sheet in exactly the same position. Variations occur. To allow for this we put 'bleed' our document, so if the cutter, cuts slightly bigger you won't get the unsightly effect 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 needs to be at least 3-5mm. If it's a business card or brochure 3mm is fine, however, magazines require 5mm. 5mm would be fine for all products. (Better to be safe than sorry!)
Now, I want you to understand that this is for EVERY edge 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.
Child's play huh?
The weird thing is that so many people get it wrong!
I know that you wouldn't make that mistake, don't I? (wink, wink, nod, nod!)
A hint for the next article is...It's opposite to what bleed is....
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Published April 3rd, 2008
Filed in Business
