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Design, Print & Copy

Print Buying

Printing, as you know, is a manufacturing process, where raw materials (paper, ink, words, images) are all assembled in the combination unique to your particular requirement.

Your first question, almost always, is “How much will it cost to…?” To which the printer immediately responds with questions about ink colour(s), paper type, quantities, size, how many pages, finishing features, etc.

Until your printer has the answer to all of these questions, until he or she can build up a “picture” in his or her mind, there is no answer to “How much”.

Once your printer knows the desired outcome(s) he can go through the necessary processes, with the correct ingredients, in the correct amounts and answer your question with some accuracy.

Communicating your requirements clearly at this point is essential to getting the outcome you desire.

Standard Page Sizes

Sizes are finished page sizes, so remember if sending files to us for printing to add a minimum of 2.5mm bleed on each side where you require the image to bleed (in lay terms this means to go right to the edge of the paper).

Standard Job Sizes

A3, A4 and A5 are the most common sizes in use today, but one size doesn’t fit all necessarily.

For instance, you may need self-adhesive labels (stickers) that have to fit in a particular place and it may be nothing like the above sizes. What’s important to remember is that the standard sizes cut economically out of the sheet as the printer buys it. Sometimes even a few millimeters bigger means less economical cut-outs and that will cost you more. Check with a woman who is cutting out a dress from some expensive material and she will be using every last little bit she can.

Design Tips

No matter how one might wish to give you all the knowledge our graphic designers apply to your work each and every day, it is an impossibility. They acquire their knowledge and abilities after several years study and then daily on-job experience and training over many years. However, a few general tips may help you to avoid some of the most common pitfalls.

SIZE – it does matter. Before starting your work setting up a piece to take to your favourite printer, check the size of the page you are using. Most computers and software programmes will default to an American letter size which will not give an economical cut-out from the papers in use in New Zealand.

BLEEDS - this is where the image goes right to the edge of the paper leaving no white margin. If you want a bleed (usually on all sides but doesn’t have to be) make your page oversize to allow for 2.5mm at least on each side you wish the bleed to occur. But remember that any text or image you wish retained on the finished work needs to be 5mm in from the net page edge. So, if your finished work is to be A4 and the image bleeds all round, make the page setting on your computer SRA4 (225x320mm), draw a box centred on that size at exactly A4 (210x297mm) which allows you to extend the image(s) that are to bleed beyond the boundary of the finished A4 page.

COLOUR - again a common trap for the unwary. Many programmes will default to RGB. This will look fine on your screen but when it comes to printing it will have to be converted to CMYK and this conversion will change the appearance. So, be careful of your settings as you are putting together your work – start with CMYK and all will be well.

PDF – not strictly a design tip. However, unless you are experienced and have an intimate knowledge of your print companies software, etc., always save your work to a PDF file once finished for transmission to the printer. Providing this is done correctly you (and the printer) will have no worries about changing fonts, changing line endings, etc.

Photoshop is a wonderful program for doing what it was designed to do – touching up photos, clear cutting, softening tones and whatever. Unfortunately a common mistake occurs when text is added to a file using Photoshop. It will look great on the screen but unfortunately when it comes to printing the text will not be as sharp and crisp as you would like it.

Please try to resist calling your printer all kinds of an incompetent fool – you have used a wonderful programme for something it was not intended for and at this point there is very little the printer can do to change that without costing you money.

Software Formats

Let’s not get too technical here. Software comes in many different “shades” from many different suppliers. As printers, reliant on the very best of software packages to provide you with product to be proud of, we learn to be adept at using many different software packages. And at Whangarei Print we have the usual array of Illustrator, CorelDraw, Page Maker, Publisher, etc.

Design and print professionals like ourselves are increasingly moving to a suite of programs. One which is rapidly becoming the industry standard is the Adobe Creative Suite 3 (or CS3 as it is often referred to).

Naturally we, too, use CS3 and this has many advantages for you. Because it is a suite of programs, each of which works with the others without losing vital information as files transfer from, say, InDesign to Photoshop, or vice versa. CS3 has all these things covered.

Among the well known components of CS3 are Photoshop, which has long been an industry standard. Adobe Acrobat, is also very much a standard. PDF files were an Adobe invention, so who better to make and read this file type. And another component of the CS3 suite is InDesign which is becoming the graphics software of choice for many design and print professionals.

We recognise that more and more clients prefer to design and type their own forms in-house using many different software platforms, some of which may then not lend themselves to doing what you want when taken to a printer.

However, in most cases, a PDF file can be made of almost everything – speak to us and we will help you to help yourselves.

Disk Formats

For all practical purposes today files are often made into PDFs and emailed; or they are burnt onto a CD or DVD. They can also be loaded onto your flash drive and downloaded straight to the hard drive of your printer’s computer.

If large files of over, say 10Mb, were being transmitted on a regular basis perhaps transmission via FTP may be appropriate.