Preparing for Print - Brief Overview!

The Reason for Print

First off, why would you want to design for print if you're a web company? One of the main reasons is to broaden your reach using magazine ads. Another might be to provide company info to prospective clients using the brochures that you hand out at the internet shows. Regardless of your reason, print ads are effective in the sense that they are usually saved for future reference by people. Don't you have a collection of magazines somewhere? If the magazine is a year old and you open it up today, those same ads from a year ago are still in there making the same statement about the company that placed it. You might be saying, "Ahhh, there's that company. Let me go check out their site and get some info." The purpose of the print ad has just paid off for that company...a year after they did it.

The Design Differences Between Web and Print

So, how much different is designing for print. It can't be that difficult. In a nutshell, no, the technical part of it is not that difficult. But there are some terms and formats that you'll need to know that aren't applicable for the web.

1) Color Format
When working on the web, it's common to use RGB (Red, Green, Blue) format. Most colors for the web can be made by combining these 3 colors. However, when working in print, there's usually a four color process/seperation using CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black). What normally happens in the preprint stages, is the printer will actually make 4 different films with each color seperated on a different film. The 4 films are combined to make the final four color images.

Some modern technology printers are developing better and quicker ways of printing, but for the most part, the old standard of color seperation is still applicable.

2) Bleed
Suppose you are working on an ad for a magazine. In order for it to be placed on the page correctly, there must be an area that can be sacrificed in order to compensate for the gutter (the crease between two pages) by shifting up, down, left and right. Plus, when all these pages are going through the cutter, there must be error room for the bounce of the cutters. This is much the case when designing business cards. The cards are usually shuttled though a big cutter that has a tendency to actually bounce the cards. So, if the main part of your page or card are right on the border, chances are it will get hacked right off. Normal bleeds are only about 1/8-1/4 inches, so it's not much to sacrifice, but something to definitely keep in mind when laying out your artwork.

3) Live Area
If you're designing an ad for a magazine, the closer your main text (known as "copy") runs to the edge, the less likely it's going to be seen. What you want to do is to move everything in an extra 1/4-1/2 inch more from the bleed area. This area is going to be your viewable area called your "Live Area". Keeping your copy within the live area keeps it neatly formatted professionally, while at the same time making it easier to read.

4) Print Format
Most printers love it if you work with a Mac and render your work in Adobe Illustrator, but most are becoming more flexible in accepting work in Photoshop PC format. The latest version of Photoshop will allow you to render vector-based text, hence allowing the text to be resized without loss of quality.

Most likely you'll be able to provide your printer a file saved in EPS or TIFF format. Using Photoshop, you can do this simply as using the "Save As" command and seleting the proper output format. Selecting a 8-bit preview is good when choosing EPS. Before sending your work off to the printer, be sure to include the fonts and the layered PSD file as well, just in case the printer needs to make adjustments.

5) Output Resolution
I've personally designed magazine ads, Internext brochures for sponsors, and even booths, and most printers will require the media to be rendered at 300dpi. The exception has been for booths who can also require 150dpi. In comparison to the web, the resolution is 2 to 5 times bigger resulting in a larger size image. The images for magazines are then taken from a larger physical size to a smaller. This allows for the print to be of a higher quality and will look crisp and sharp. One thing I do if a printer requires an output of 300dpi, is make my dimensions smaller (1/4 scale) and set my resolution higher (4 times higher). For instance, if the actual print size dimensions will be 8.5" x 11" at 300dpi, I set my settings to 2.125" x 2.75" at 1200dpi. This helps me keep the size more viewable on my screen without necessarily making the pores of a models face as big as my 21" monitor screen. The output resolution will still be the same if using these factors of four.

Designing for print may seem like something cool to play around with, but make sure you have enough time on your hands because you are going to be working with some VERY large file sizes. You can actually expect to have Photoshop PSD files anywhere from 25Mb to 300Mb depending on the detail and whether or not you're using bitmap images such as photos, or just vector based elements such as fonts. Images will always increase the size of your files substantially. Heck, it may take a few minutes just to open the document you're working on.

You'll definitely want to plan your print work well in advance. I've had many clients need an ad done and think they can get it all done and at the printer in one day. Although it may be done through voodoo or acts of God, but in reality, it's just not possible. When dealing with files this large, simple editting, like moving a photo image a half inch to the right, or changing the background from a solid color to a gradient, can take a while. If you're using a PC computer that is not loaded with GHz of memory and a ripping fast processor, it can take several minutes to do simple changes and even more time to actually save the file. I sometimes use a PC that I consider to be pretty loaded for graphics work, and I've had booth designs that have taken up to 20 minutes just to save the PSD file! I end up going to lunch...and God forbid I suffer a power outage or system lockup before saving...ugh, believe me, it's happened.

Lastly, if you're sending your work off to the printer, and unless you upload on a system you're not going to use, or if you plan on uploading while you're in La La Land, you may want to simply burn your files to a CD and ship out them by mail. Otherwise, you'll be ftp'ing until the wee hours of the night with files this large. Again, this is another reason to prepare ahead of time and not wait until the last minute.

As you can see, there are some considerations to be made when doing print work. The terms you can learn by doing it more and more, but a main point to consider is that the time needed to actually do the work from start to finish is quite time consuming and should be thought out in advance.