Sizes
DL 110 x 220mm
C3 324 x 458mm
C4 229 x 324mm
C5 162 x 229mm
C6 114 x 162mm
Print Guide
How to get your artwork ready for print and understand the jargon.
Leaflets
Using leaflets has always been a great way to promote your company, bringing it to the attention of potential clients. There are a wide range of leaflet styles and shapes available.
Finished Size
DL – 210mm x 99mm
A6 – 105mm x 148mm
A5 – 148mm x 210mm
A4 – 210mm x 297mm
Envelope Sizes
Paper Sizes
A0 – 841 × 1189 mm
A1 – 594 × 841 mm
A2 – 420 × 594 mm
A3 – 297 × 420 mm
A4 – 210 × 297 mm
A5 – 148 × 210 mm
A6 – 105 × 148 mm
A7 – 74 × 105 mm
A8 – 52 × 74 mm
A9 – 37 × 52 mm
A10 – 26 x 37mm
Paper
PAPER WEIGHT – WHAT IS GSM?
GSM stands for Grams Per Square Meter, a measurement used to identify the weight of different types of paper and card. The higher the value of GSM, the heavier card or piece of paper. So a 1msq 400gsm board weighs 400 grams. Once the paper weight gets to 170gsm it is normally then referred to as card.
THE THICKNESS OF PAPER
Card thickness or caliper is traditionally measured in Microns. 1000 Microns = 1mm, so the higher the value, the thicker the card or paper. Usually paper or card is sold by weight as opposed to thickness, but sometimes you may see Microns instead. Thickness of card sold usually starts at around 200 microns, and finishes at around 500 microns.
Bleed & Crop Marks
Bleed – Where artwork design crosses the edge of the page, bleed is required to ensure full print coverage. Bleeds should be 3mm from where the cut is to be made.
Crop marks – Single lines denoting the edge of the document.
Crop marks should be included on a document to indicate where to cut.
Design programs (e.g. InDesign, Quark, etc.) will include a crop mark option.
Binding Options
Saddle Stitch
If you look at any magazine, comic book, or brochure, you’re probably looking at an example of saddle stitch binding. It is one of the most popular book binding methods available today. In saddle stitching, folded sheets of paper are nested one within another and attached by staples through the fold.
Perfect
Book binding, where the pages are held in the spine by glue. Many magazines and most paperback books are perfect bound.
Wiro
Wire bound books, is the best binding method for materials that must lay open and flat for easy reading. It consists of a continuous, spring-shaped piece of wire, which is durable and crush-resistant, that is threaded through a series of die-cut holes on the binding edge of the book.
RGB & CMYK - Colour
The colours used in four colour process printing, Cyan Magenta Yellow Black. Black is ‘K’ to differentiate from blue ‘B’ in RGB colour model where Red Green and Blue light is added together to reproduce an array of colours. The system is used for the display of colour images electronically (e.g. LCD and CRT screens).
So to leave you with one final thought remember:
RGB for screen – CMYK for print
Pantone Colours
Colour matching system created by Pantone Inc©. Inks are specified and identified by numbers to produce standard results across the industry.
Last month Adobe issued a technical bulletin about “changes coming to the Pantone Colour Libraries”. The Pantone Colour Libraries that are pre-loaded in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Adobe Colour, and Adobe Capture will be removed from future software updates.
“To minimize the impact of this change, we are working on an alternative solution for the affected products. Stay tuned for updates.” – Adobe
Visit Pantone website for further information Click HereE.g. Pantone 294 U – Pantone 294 CRaster & Vector
Raster images are constructed by a series of pixels, or individual blocks, to form an image.
JPEG, GIF, and PNG are all raster image extensions. Every photo you find online or in print
is a raster image. Pixels have a defined proportion based on their resolution (high or low),
and when the pixels are stretched to fill space they were not originally intended to fit, they
become distorted, resulting in blurry or unclear images.
In order to retain pixel quality, you cannot resize raster images without compromising their resolution.
Image Resolution
Low resolution images detract from design. Images should be at least 300dpi (dots per inch). Images downloaded from the Internet can be as low as 72dpi. Dots comprising the image are bigger for low resolution images and this can be noticeable when enlarged. We can’t use images downloaded form the internet because of their low quality.
Remember – DPI: Better too high than too low
File Types
Png Files
PNG stands for “Portable Graphics Format”. It is the most frequently used uncompressed raster image format on the internet. This lossless data compression format was created to replace the Graphics Interchange Format (GIF). PNG file format is an open format with no copyright limitations. Like GIF images, PNG also have the ability to display transparent backgrounds. In addition to that, PNG files are capable of containing 24bit RGB color palettes and greyscale images. Basically, this image format was designed to transfer images on the internet
Jpg Files
JPEGs might be the most common file type you run across on the web, and more than likely the kind of image that is in your company’s MS Word version of its letterhead. JPEGs are known for their “lossy” compression, meaning that the quality of the image decreases as the file size decreases.
Eps / Vector Files
EPS is a file in vector format that has been designed to produce high-resolution graphics for print. Almost anyprofessional design software can create an EPS.
PDF Files
Adobe’s Portable Document Format is now the industry standard for supplying documents to print, care should be taken to configure the PDF correctly before presentation, please ask if unsure of appropriate settings to apply.