A Graphic Design Guide to Printing Bleeds
What is Bleed?
To create printing bleed in is done easily by setting up common bleed template (see below) or using guidelines in your desktop program. You may apply bleed to flyers, posters, newsletters, business card, postcards or stationery. The same rules will always apply to file preparation for commercial printing.
When the area of printing exceeds the edge of a sheet of paper it called ink bleed. In pre press (preparing your file for print) setting your printing file up for bleed requires special treatment. If special precautions are not taken, your commercial printer may not be able to print the effect your are looking for. In fact. ready-for-printer electronic files always include specific instructions for the artist to follow. Allowing for printing bleed is at the top of the list.
Below I am going to show you how to set up belled for typical print projects like business cards, post card or rack cards. The simple rule of thumb I use in and printing requirement that has bleed is extending the bleed effect 1/8″ beyond the final trim size.
Notice the above business card has both bitmap images and included in the digital file. It does not matter what type of graphic are being used in the native file format the same rule applies for bleeding ink. Take careful note of the oversized graphic usage on the background components.
Bleed Set Up For 2 X 3 1/2″ Business Cards
To create printing bleed for a business card one of the main things to watch is the placement of printable text. You can see the green inner border above shows a safety zone where you should not place any text you want to be readable. Setting up
printing bleeds for your business card is a good way to understand how bleed printing works.
Bleed Set Up For 4 1/4 X 6 1/4″ Post Cards
Bleed Set Up For 5 1/4 X 7 1/4″ PostCards
Bleed Set Up For 4 X 9″ Rack Cards
Bleed Set Up For 6 1/4 X 7 3/4 ” PostCards
If you study the examples above you will see a pattern forming. The outside bleed extension area is 1/8″ beyond the final trimmed size and any printable text should be within 1/8″ of the finished cropped size of your artwork.
Favorite Music