Rules for preparing a layout. Interesting points. Little tricks.

Even a millimeter matters

Each printing house, like Wolf printing house has a set of preparation requirements layouts for printing. It is dictated by the peculiarities of technological processes. To obtain high-quality products in the form in which they were originally intended, these requirements must be carefully fulfilled. It is much easier to follow them when they are clear and explainable. Let's try to figure it out together and offer a series of materials that will help you look “inside” typographic wishes.

Today we’ll look at why sheet product margins are needed and what they should be.

Basic concepts

The format after trimming is the final size of the finished product. Most products are printed on sheets of a larger format, and then trimmed to the required size.

Format to trim - the size of the design layout, taking into account special allowances for post-printing processing, in particular cutting. In simple words, background illustrations need to be placed over a larger area so that after trimming there are no unsightly white fields left.

Blinds. That part of the design that goes beyond trimming. Bleads "go away" when the post is trimmed to its final size. These allowances are necessary to ensure that the design or image reaches the very edge without leaving unsightly white edges.

The safe area is the area inside the piece. It is slightly smaller in size than the trimmed format. The content should be slightly moved away from the edge so that in case of imprecise cutting it will not be cut off.

Ideal formula

For small one-page products, the most common formula looks like this:

• Blinds - 2 mm (technologically, about 0.5-1.5 mm goes into cutting);
• Indentation from the edges (safe zone) - 5 mm (layouts where elements are located close to the edge do not look very aesthetically pleasing). In larger format products (from A6), you can leave large margins from the edge - 8-10 mm. This way the design looks more impressive;
• If the layout has a frame, its thickness should be at least 4 mm +2 mm for bleed. However, after cutting, there is a risk that its edges will be different sizes;
• If the product is bent, then the safe zone will be located inside each part. That is, there must be at least 5 mm from important elements to the fold line.
• Other important requirements that will ensure mutual understanding with the printing house:
• The layout prepared for printing should not contain crosses, marks or other supporting information;
• The size of the finished product must be indicated in exact numbers without tenths. For example, 45x90, not 45.5x95.55

So, the requirements for margins are very important and not at all complicated. We will not stop and will continue to introduce you to technological features in the following articles of our blog.