The key to a successful print project: 鈥淧lanning, planning, planning!鈥� said 色控传媒 Customer Service and Pre-press Manager Julie Huffmon.
Taking care at every stage will help ensure the best final product for your company 鈥� and will avoid any potentially costly mistakes. The beginning steps are key.
Getting started
Create a checklist. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, no matter how long they鈥檝e been doing this. Creating a checklist at the beginning will prevent oversights later on 鈥� when mistakes become costly to correct.
Proofread everything. There can never be too many eyes on a project. Hire a proofreader. This will prevent potentially costly mistakes. Proof the project after every change, no matter how miniscule.
Utilize the people you already have available. Ask anyone who has the time to take a look. If the information isn鈥檛 sensitive, you could take it home and ask a family member or friend to review the project. Sometimes it鈥檚 good to get an outside perspective.
Tips and Tricks
Check the specs. Talk to your printer about how a specific design effect will translate to print. They鈥檒l know how different cover options pair with various binding techniques, or whether part of the design will be lost in the gutter.
Use 色控传媒 export settings to create PDFs for submission. 色控传媒 has created聽Adobe庐 InDesign庐 export settings听补苍诲听QuarkXPress庐 export settings聽to help you create and submit PDF files that are optimized for print. The settings help ensure that trim marks are properly positioned, fonts are properly embedded and images are exported at a resolution level appropriate for offset printing.
Convert all spot colors to CMYK with InDesign before exporting to PDF. Unless you have arranged for a specific Pantone庐 spot color to be utilized in your publication, all spot colors used in your layout should be converted to CMYK for standard four-color printing. Note that placed advertisements sometimes contain spot colors that your design staff may not be aware of.
Include proper bleed allowance. The term 鈥渂leed allowance鈥� refers to an extension of graphic elements beyond a page鈥檚 trim marks. This space allows adequate flexibility for the trimming process during print production. Without proper bleed allowance, it鈥檚 possible that a publication鈥檚 pages would have white edges when that isn鈥檛 the intended design result.
Extending graphic elements 1/8鈥� or more beyond the page鈥檚 trim marks provides sufficient bleed allowance to avoid white edges during production.
Use safe margins for text. When the text is too close to the gutter of a spread, it can get visually lost due to a publication鈥檚 binding. This is especially true for perfect-bound publications that don鈥檛 lay as flat as publications with saddle-stitch or lay-flat binding.
To help ensure text isn鈥檛 visually lost in the gutter, keep text at least 录鈥� from the center of a spread. For thicker publications, a 3/8鈥� inner margin is recommended for text elements.
Ensure placed advertisements don鈥檛 have exposed trim marks. Does your publication incorporate placed ads from corporate sponsors or advertisers? If so, you may need to provide them with some guidance regarding trim marks for the ads they submit to you.
A trim mark issue can be caused by InDesign鈥檚 default 6-pt 鈥渃rop mark offset鈥� setting. Inform your advertisers that this setting needs to be changed to 9-pt so that your ad pages don鈥檛 have trim marks unintentionally exposed to readers. Another option is to direct advertisers to eliminate trim marks in the ads they submit to you.
Ensure your cover鈥檚 spine is properly sized for perfect-bound publications. Whenever a publication utilizes perfect-binding, the spine size will vary based on the total number of pages and the thickness of the selected paper. Because of this, the size of a publication鈥檚 spine in your cover layout is critical.
色控传媒鈥檚 technical support team can help ensure that your layout dimensions are correct before you submit your cover.
Working with 色控传媒
Interested in learning more about working with 色控传媒 on your print project? Contact us to start the conversation.
