Enjoy creating artwork that's perfect for print.

Top quality print begins with top quality artwork, and the good news is that you don’t always need the expense of a professional graphic designer to do it for you. Anyone can produce ‘print ready’ artwork on their laptop or PC, by following a few simple tips:

1. Bleed

Most printing is done a larger sheet which is then cut down to the required size.If your design has colour running to the edges of the page, you’re in danger of getting a thin white strip on the edges where the guillotine has wandered.

Tip: To prevent this, it’s good practice to allow your design to extend beyond the trim edge. Adding 3mm on all sides is usually enough.

2. Choose the right colour mode

Have you ever been disappointed when the colours on a printed job look different to how they look on your computer screen? It’s all down to different types of colour mixing. With printing ink or paint, mixing different colours together will create a new, darker colour. However, mixing colours together on a computer screen will create a new, lighter colour. As you can imagine, replicating the exact same colour in both mediums can be very difficult to achieve.

Tip: To avoid this, try creating your document in ‘CMYK’ mode rather than ‘RGB’. This will allow your on‐screen design to simulate the CMYK inks used in printing rather than the RGB light used in computer monitors and televisions.

3. Margins

So, your printed item contains all that important information you want to convey to the reader. The last thing you need is for any of that information to be cut off, or to be lost near the spine of a book.

Tip: It’s perfectly OK for background colours of your design to run to the edge of the page, but make sure any text or important information is not placed too close to the edge. Keeping text at least 5mm away from each edge is good practice. If you’re creating a document with several pages, you’ll need a larger margin on each inside edge. A left hand facing page needs a larger margin on the right, whilst a right hand facing page requires a larger margin on the left.

4. Use high quality images

Nobody wants to look at blurred images or grainy looking graphics. Low resolution images may look fine on your computer screen, but when it comes to printing them, those images need to be high resolution. Computer screens display things at 72dpi. Printed items ideally need to be 300dpi. So, when looking at your images on screen, imagine how sharp they will look 4 times thesize!

Tip: If the software you’re using to create your design has an output resolution option, set it to 300dpi or higher.

5. Send your print supplier a PDF

PDF is a universally accepted file format that retains all the information in your created document. Most software has a ‘create PDF’ option when you choose ‘print’.

Tip: If you’ve used fonts that are not recognised by your print supplier’s computer, a substitute font may end up being used, which can make your design look different to the way it was intended. To avoid this, try converting your text into ’Smart Objects’ if using Photoshop, or ‘Convert to Outlines’ if using Adobe Illustrator.

Now you know how to create the best quality artwork, you can enjoy the best results from your printer, every time. What will you be designing next?