Getting Designs Ready for Print - Paper Lime Creative
Getting Designs Ready for Print
Write By: Katie Dooley

Getting Graphic Design Ready for Print

Graphic design is a cool industry! On one hand, it involves a ton of creativity, we have to create new logos and icons that have never existed before. Our projects include illustrations, infographics, or tons of content and we get to be creative in laying it all out… our favourite part! 

But graphic design can also be analytical and technical. During brand development, for example, we spend a lot of time researching and finding stats to guide us. Sometimes we get the opportunity to interview our clients’ ideal customers and more.

One of the most technical aspects of design that people don’t get to see is the printing! While it’s second nature to us now, there are a lot of things we have to think about when creating a print-ready design.

 

Resolution

Resolution is a huge factor in your designs that will determine how something prints.

Is it high resolution? Print and screen are very different. On-screen you can use lower resolutions, and, in fact, want lower resolutions to decrease website load times.

Print needs to be high resolution (at least 240 pixels per inch) to print clearly. Be sure to get your photos from professional photographers or reputable stock photography websites.

Do not get your photos from Google. For one, it’s probably stealing and two, they’re not high enough resolution.

Graphics should be vectors (scalable) or high resolution as well. Low-resolution, blurry and pixelated print materials make it seem like businesses cut corners or didn’t know what they were doing — not great for your brand!

 

selecting the right colours are key for print ready design
Pantones are one way to ensure your colours print accurately!

Colour

Setting colour up for print can be a rabbit hole. We won’t deep dive too far in this blog post, but we do have fantastic blog posts on colour if you want to learn more!

Your print materials need to be set up in one of two ways for the printer: CMYK or Pantone. These settings can be changed on your preferred graphics program, but it’s a little tricky if you’re using Canva. 

Other colour formats exist, most commonly hexadecimal and RGB, but won’t print accurately because they are meant for screens. 

 

Bleeds

This is one we get asked about a lot, “What are those little ticks on the edge of my document?” These bad boys are crop marks and show the printer where to slice your paper. The ink on the outside of these marks is the bleeds.

Bleeds are a key part of having print ready design
This document is all set up to print with crop marks in the corners!

 

Have you ever tried to cut something out of paper and there’s just the finest bit of white you can’t quite cut off? Bleeds prevent this from happening. Paper can shift during the cutting process and having a little bit of extra ink (typically 1/8”) on all sides prevents any white borders.

 

Paper Size and Stock

Paper is so much fun and there are so many options. Your designer or printer can help narrow down options for you. Paper can become a big part of your branding, too! 

The glossy paper gives great clarity to prints and accentuates colours, but it’s hard to write on. Matte paper has a great feel, and is easy to write on but can soften images and graphics because more ink absorbs into the paper. 

There’s also thickness and colour to think about too! Thick paper is beautiful and gives a high-quality feel but it’s hard to print and can increase your costs. 

Paper will affect your printing and while there’s no right or wrong choice, you don’t want the outcome to be a surprise!

 

Specialty

Like with paper, there are tons of specialty options for printing. This can be a great way to differentiate print materials from other businesses. Finishes can include, UV (gloss) coatings, embossing, metallic foils, glitter, special die-cuts, and more! 

While we won’t get into detail on the types (we’ll save that for a different blog post) know that these need to be set up in a very specific way. 

We send a picture to a printer to print, it’s our job to know how to communicate where your design will be cut, folded, glued, stapled, and glittered.

 

Ready to Send Your Design to Print?

There’s nothing more satisfying to us than picking up that perfect print job after a meticulous design process. There’s something magical about seeing your brand in print. Need some extra help getting your print design ready to send to the printer? Give us a shout, we’re happy to help!