Printing Tips:

Rather than highlighting specific issues related to printing, we are offering some tips which can help you get the most out of your printing. Designing for print is as much an art as a science, so don’t feel that you should be too constricted by guidelines, but they will help you to get the results you are looking for.

Colour:

One of the most important steps in getting the most vibrant colour in your printing is understanding the difference between RGB and CMYK. If you are providing files to be printed in four colour process you need to ensure that your design is supplied in CMYK.  Any RGB files need to be converted to protect your colouring. Also, check the paper stock you are printing on, as you may need to adjust the Total Area Coverage. The colour value’s total should never exceed 300%, and indeed you may need to reduce this number for different papers.

Image Specs:

Any graphics you place in your design will need a safety margin surrounding them.  This margin should separate the edge of the graphic from any other part of the design to avoid rebates in your printing.

Image files should be saved as TIFFs for the best results, though JPEG files can be used if you need to reduce the file’s size. TIFF compression is a lossless format, which won’t compromise the quality of your image. JPEGs will reduce the quality of the image as a trade off for the lower memory size.

Colour and grey-scale images should be produced at 300dpi resolution, and bitmap images should be kept at at least 1200dpi. Any lower resolution will reduce the quality of the printed image.

Fonts:

Do not use bold or italic styling options on your text. Instead, use the bold or italic font options, should they exist. The styling options will not be printed if there is not associated printer font. The space will be left blank or the text will be left in its standard form. Equally you should avoid stylised shadows or shadows.

Fine lettering should be limited to single colour only, and kept to a minimum weight of 0.25. Reducing letting to any finer than this can lead to unpredictable results, which won’t necessarily be accurately represented by your screen or office printer.

Backgrounds and Tints:

Solid black backgrounds should be produced in what is called a “Rich Black”, 100% black plus 40% cyan tint, to create a stronger black when it come to printing.  If you are using large blocks of colour across multiple pages, you run the risk of drawing attention to minor differences in the colour balance of each page. To prevent this, use as few colour processes as possible to create the banner.

Any content which runs to the edge of the page must extend beyond the page by 3mm.  If it does not extend to the edge they should be kept a minimum of 5mm from the page edge.

Here are few tips to remember when designing a company brochure for the first time.
About 50% of the brochure designs we see are ‘over designed’. This means that every possible piece of white space is used up, the thinking behind this is obviously to get the maximum content into a document to get ‘your money’s worth’. Simply cramming a design full of text a images will have a detrimental effect on your printed brochure.

Design it with a newspaper headline in mind. Think about which information needs to be highlighted, for example take the most important message on the page, and ensure this has the largest and possibly most attractive image to ensure it stands out from the crowd, then use the next most important message in hierarchy of size, large to small.

Naturally your eye is drawn firstly to images and photos of any design, this becomes more difficult if there is too much information and too many images are fighting for attention, its not everyone but less usually means more.

Once you have simplified the design and layout, having a brochure printed with simple folding also helps, an A3 folded to A4 is the most simple; likewise A4 folded to A5 is also very popular. We see so many customers trying too hard with complicated folding.

Imagine if you will a businessman who has been given two printed brochures at a trade show. The first brochure is a simple 8 page A3 folded to A4, it is neatly designed and well printed onto quality material, the pages are held in place by two simple staples or saddle stitches, thus allowing the pages to be easily opened and closed. The second brochure lets assume is similar in design and print quality but with a much more complicated fold. It forms the same amount of paper used in the brochure 1, but if folded form the same A2 sheet, then it’s slightly cheaper than having staples. This in theory is correct, but the actual end result isn’t easy to handle, it ends up being like a un-folded road map, cumbersome and awkward to open, and even more awkward to fold back down again – not good when your prospective customer is trying to read your brochure in the confines of the train carriage on their way home.

We are not saying that this type of folded leaflet should be outlawed, its just that it has its place, and using it to cut costs on a company brochure is not one of them.

Best to keep your brochure printing follow standard folding and stitching formats, there is a reason they are standard – it’s because they work!

The basis of design is the bringing together of various elements into one area to achieve an interaction that will communicate a message within a given context. The message may be conveyed and even manipulated through the careful visual juggling of the elements that are to be used within the design area. Essentially, these elements will be words, photographs, illustrations and graphic images, combined with a controlling force of black, white and colour.
I shall encourage you to look at and explore the creative potential of these elements its through experimentation. Initially, I shall divide up all the design elements, taking them one by one in their most basic visual forms – as simple lines, geometric blocks and free shapes. You will be able to set up a working design arena within which you can experiment with these elements, moving them around and assessing their visual powers, both independently and in relation to one another, and as you do so you will experience a sense of creative awareness.
As this section of the book progresses, you will become aware of the visual options that each of the elements can offer and thus gain a greater understanding of the choices open to you as a designer.
In the early stages you need to concentrate on the use of black and white images in order to develop your awareness fully, before moving on to the broader dimensions offered by the introduction of colour. You will soon discover how to enlarge or reduce the elements, effectively changing the power of both the visual and written messages.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT ELEMENTS
At some point in the design process you will need to decide which elements are either essential or creatively desirable as components of your design.
It is probably prudent to minimize the number of elements in the initial stages. In my view a great any well-conceived pieces of design are successful simply because they make full visual and creative use of a limited number of design elements. First, see how well the work develops using one element. Then sparingly introduce the other ingredients, making sure that they do not overwhelm the design. Never use anything for its own sake; always consider and justify its inclusion as a contributor to the overall design effect.