Things to be Aware of when Designing

Things to be Aware of when Designing

Introduction

This article takes you through a few things you need to be aware of when setting your files up for print.

Things to be Aware of when Designing

Hairlines

Hairline strokes are device dependent, so they output at different stroke thicknesses on different devices. Use 0.1pt instead.

Texture & Postscript

These can print with unexpected results. If you use them ensure that you have checked them carefully prior to creating your PDF.

Borders

Any small movement at the guillotine stage will make borders on small items look uneven. If you add a border thicker borders are less likely to look uneven.

Watermarks

The lowest tint we recommend for Offset print is 5% per CMYK channel. Digital, Large Format and High Speed Inkjet have a minimum tint of 10%.

Image Types

All the major file types are supported within your PDF: psd, tif, eps and jpg.

RGB & Duotone

We convert your images to CMYK before sending to print, although our conversion may not be exactly what you require. We recommend converting to CMYK before creating your PDF.

Gradients

A limitation of gradients is that they can exhibit banding. Short gradients or gradients with colours close together on the colour spectrum work best.

Layer Effects & Transparency

If your file contains any vector layer effects, transparency effects or opacity changes, then ensure that your PDF has rendered these correctly when exporting your artwork to PDF.

Overprint

Most vector elements, with the exception of black text, should normally be set to knock out. If you use overprint then check the PDF to ensure that the desired effect will be present.

Working with Coloured Text

There are things to be aware of when working with coloured text:

Due to their physical limitations, all printing presses may experience slight variations in the positioning of the cyan, magenta, yellow and black colours. Any deviance among the four colours is called misregistration.

The printed result of misregistration is coloured “halos” around your smaller, finer elements such as text or thin lines.

We recommend that coloured text is used only at sizes larger than 12 points. This also applies when you are using white text.








Questions?
If you have any questions, please contact your account manager.


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