How to make sure your designs print well and avoid reprints
There is nothing worse than a client calling to let you know that their awesome business cards have a digit wrong on their phone number, or worse; that their logo came out blurry. Unfortunately, these kinds of printing errors are all too common in the graphic design industry. That is why today we will look at some tips on how to best avoid a reprint of your work by going through a preprinted checklist.
Communicate with the printers
A good graphic designer knows that the best way to get prints done properly is to have good communication with the printers. The people working the machines and printing software are usually not designers and you shouldn’t rely on them to fix a design problem before printing. Ask your printers everything you need to know. Starting with what kind of file they prefer to print from. If printing a book or booklet, ask them how they will print the pages so that you can save paper and money. Ask if they need your document to have bleed marks and cut marks or can they print with a file at the final size.
Never send a design to a printer without talking to them first.
Size and resolution
The first step to avoiding blurry prints is to design at the exact size you will be printing and at 300 dpi. If possible, better to design in vector format just be sure that the quality of the design will stay crisp and well defined. If using photographs, make sure that the originals are high resolution as well.
Use print ready vector graphics from Freepik
A great way to avoid pixelated prints is to use the print ready vector graphics available on Freepik. These graphics come in Illustrator, Photoshop or .svg files which can be customized easily on your preferred software. They are guaranteed to stay crisp and you can be sure they print well. The business card, flyer and CV templates already come in the right size as well so, win-win!
CMYK color profile
For print designs, you need to design with a CMYK profile right from the start. You can set this up in the document properties in your software. If you forgot, then you can convert it to CMYK later by it’s best to just do it from the beginning.
Proofread everything for grammatical and syntax errors
Typos are the most common errors that lead to unfortunate reprints. Always double check for typos; not only in the copy but also in the addresses, emails, phone numbers, or dates and times if it’s an event. Have your client proof the design before sending to print. Have other people apart from you, check for typos as well.
Double check kerning and leading
Nothing worse than using a font that leaves a huge space between a capital letter and the rest of the word. Worse even if this happens on a heading. It will make your design look unprofessional. Check all kerning (space between letters) in the headings and subheadings. Also check the leading (line spacing) in all the paragraphs. Stay consistent throughout the entire document.
Proof margins, spacings and pagination
When designing a multi page design like a leaflet or booklet, make sure the margins are the same throughout. Double check your spacings between graphics and text for balance. If designing a magazine or something that will be bound, take into account the space that will be taken away between pages and set up margins accordingly. Software like InDesign will help you maintain the margins and also the pagination.
Pagination is the way the pages are organized for printing. A booklet can be printed on double pages that are then folded over, meaning that one side has page 1 and 2 while the other has the last two pages. When books are bound with a spine then they are either printed double and then cut or just printed page by page. It will depend on your printer.
Don’t forget the bleeds and cropping area
Always design the edges with enough space for bleeding and cropping. You can show the bleed and crop marks for the printer if they need you to. You can also just make sure that there is an extra 3mm on all sides of the margin because that might disappear when cropping.
Embed the fonts
A great big problem when the printer gets your PDF files is that they might not have that really cool font you used and it will change into another one that they do have in their machines. There are two ways to fix this problem. The easiest is to embed the fonts into your document. This is done when exporting as a PDF. Make sure you have the correct license for that font! Another way is to turn the text into path. The only problem with it is that if there are typos, they are pretty impossible to fix. So back to proofreading, easily the most important thing on the checklist.
If you are creating a graphic with the fonts on your computer and then exporting to PNG then embedding the font is not necessary. Only if you are saving as a PDF in which the machines read text as text. A PNG would be one visual unit so no embedding necessary. Your printer will most probably ask for a PDF or EPS so might as well embed!!!
