The Complete Book of Print Design
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The printed documents for your business take a lot of your time and money if you're a business owner. Every brochure, business card, or direct mail postcard you create will reflect well on you if the design is done with care.
Here are some recommendations for making sure all of your print projects exhibit top-notch design for an outstanding first impression.
1. Make use of legible type.
Watch the typeface and font weights you use. Use no more than two to three typefaces for any project, is the general guideline. Within each family, you can employ several treatments to offer variation (bold, italic, etc.).
Additionally crucial are leading and kerning. Kerning, or the distance between each individual letter in your typography, is known as character-spacing. Each line's leading is the distance between them. Setting them incorrectly will result in a less legible text.
2. Decide on easily readable typefaces.
There are so many lovely typefaces available. It's simple to get caught up in the aesthetic and neglect legibility. Invitations or other modest, intimate objects are the finest uses for cursive typefaces. For greatest effect, use a straightforward, clean serif or sans serif font for brochures, posters, direct mail, billboards, and anything else that has to attract attention and express information quickly and simply.
Bonus advice: Steer clear of garish or overused typefaces (Comic Sans, Papyrus, Times New Roman). Pick contemporary typefaces like Helvetica, Avenir, Gotham, or Futura. Searching on websites like fontsquirrel.com will help you uncover brand-new fonts.
3. Make use of CYMK, high resolution images.
When sending your bundled files to any printer, it's essential to understand the differences between CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) and RBG (red, green, and blue). Any visuals you use must be converted to CMYK for printing.
For any raster or vector artwork, choosing the proper picture resolution and dpi is crucial as well. 300 dpi is the bare minimum resolution that is advised for printing. If finding high-quality photography is not a possibility, buying stock photos is an excellent alternative. Check out our guide, Prepress 101: How to Prepare Images for Print, for further advice on how to get your photos ready for printing.
4. Create your document correctly.
Your bleeds must be set up correctly if your artwork is intended to print all the way to the edge of the page. Printing delays might occur if bleeds are not factored in. Setting trim, live area, and bleed guides before you begin working on your project makes it simpler. By doing this, you will prevent the printed artwork from having little white borders all around it.
You must leave adequate space if your paper doesn't bleed so that no crucial information is omitted when completion. See Prepress 101: Your Best Guide For Creating Print-Ready Files for additional information on how to set up your document correctly.
5. Make use of colour to convey your message.
The power to communicate via colour is on par with that of language. Make sure your document is set to the appropriate colour mode first. The norm for print design is CMYK, while the norm for online design is RGB. The colours on your printed product may differ from the colours you see on the computer screen if the wrong colour mode is used.
You can start utilising colour to communicate now that you're using CMYK for print or RGB for the web. To find resources we adore for colours, check out our colours board on Pinterest.
6. Comply with the hierarchy of information.
Always keep information hierarchy in mind when designing. Business name, contact information, dates, and titles are examples of more critical information that should be larger and readily visible while the rest of the information can be smaller. It is simpler to read and more aesthetically pleasing when the material is broken up into "chunks" using different font sizes.
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7. Be sure to proofread everything.
Forgetting to spell check and proofread might cause serious issues with your printed result. Nothing is worse than crafting a stunning piece only to discover that grammar mistakes undermine your efforts. Spend a time carefully editing your own work. Then, before you submit the document to the printer, have a second (or third) set of eyes review it.
8. Constantly ask for a proof.
A physical or electronic evidence should always be requested, and it should be reviewed by several individuals before being approved. Making ensuring all of your resources are excellent and free of errors is a crucial step.
