Author Archives: P & B Print

Setting up Bleed for Print

Bleed for Print

One of the most difficult concepts to understand in printing is Bleed. Don’t worry, it’s not as dangerous or messy as it sounds. It’s a way of planning for the inherent imperfections in the process of turning your files into printed products.

P&B Spot Business CardsIf your design has color or elements that run off the edge of the page, you’ll need to add a BLEED to your document. Think of it as the extra bit around the edges that can be cut away without affecting the design. Printing is ultimately a mechanical process; paper enters a machine (in this case a printer or press), ink is applied, and it comes out the other side. Every sheet of paper that runs through the machine can shift and move by a sixteenth of an inch or more because that paper has such a long path to travel.

This is oversimplifying a bit, but the basic idea is there. If we didn’t take these shifts of paper into account, when the sheet is cut out, you may see extra white paper around the edges of the offending sheets. To avoid this, we want to stretch the color of the design out past where we want to cut it. This way, even if it shifts, we won’t see it.

NOTE: Another tricky-wicket when designing can be borders. If you have a solid border around your artwork, you’ll want to make sure that it extends INTO the Safe Zone of your design by at least.25″. This way, when your print is cut the border will appear even despite the variances in printing. Otherwise you could end up with a lopsided border that isn’t consistent throughout the run of prints.

 

Bleed Guide

Cut Edge: This line represents the finished cut edge of the piece.

Live Area (Safe Zone): The area that is considered safe to keep information or important elements within.

Bleed Area & Edge: The more bleed, the better. This area is the overage you need to provide if the color of your design goes all the way to the edge. Keep in mind anything in this area will be cut off, but you need something here so you don’t get white space at the edge of your finished card. Printers tend to shift minutely when printing, so not every sheet is always perfectly aligned, this extra space accounts for that shift.

The absolute minimum bleed you need for a printed piece is 0.125 in (1/8 in) per edge but some pieces require more than that. So if you are working with an image in Photoshop or Illustrator and placing it in InDesign for print preparation, keep in mind the area you might need to use for the bleed.

Crop Marks: Indicates where the print shop with cut the paper to create the finished piece.

Photo Restoration

Photo Restoration

Do you have a shoe box in the closet full of old photos from a time before cell phone cameras? Just because the memories have faded, doesn’t mean the photos have to. Saving those pictures from the ravages of time is more important now than ever, because your collection of physical mementos is shrinking by the day as your world becomes more digital.

Don’t worry! We can restore those photos and reproduce them so you’ll have plenty of copies to hold on to for posterity. Whether it’s a family photo from the mall or your great-grandparent’s wedding photo, we can restore color and remove dust and scratches to make it look better than the day it was taken.

Photo Restoration

After we work our magic, we can print them at any size, and on a variety of materials. Need an 8×10? We can do it. Need a wallet-sized photo? We’ve gotcha covered. How about a ten-foot-tall banner with your baby photos on it? We can do that, too.

Give us a call or come in with your old pictures, and let our designers restore them today!

Unique Valentines Gifts & Cards

Unique Valentines Gifts

Unique Valentines Gifts

Love is in the air and Valentine’s day is almost here! You could give your loved ones the standard gift of chocolate and flowers, OR you could make your very own Valentine card to say “I love you”!  The personal touch of giving someone a unique card with a hand-written note inside is becoming a lost art. Remember in elementary school when you would give your classmates a Star Wars or Peanuts valentine and feel so happy when you would get one yourself? Give that feeling to someone this year by sending us a photo, drawing, or even just an idea, and we can turn it into a greeting card, calendar, or postcard that you can share with the special person in your life.

Speaking of unique valentines gifts, here are some other ideas to go with that totally special card we made…

 

Digital Printing vs. Offset Printing

When you start a business it’s important to get the essentials out of the way first. One could argue that aside from the business name and logo, there is nothing more important than business stationery! Business cards, letterhead, envelopes, and flyers are all vital pieces of collateral that help to spread the news that you are in the marketplace. Potential customers will keep your business card long after you’ve parted company, and it could mean the difference of being fresh in their mind when they are in need of your services, or simply being a face that they can’t quite remember a few months later.

Now that you know the importance of branded paper goodies, we have a few things to look out for when you’re out shopping for them. You may be asked whether you want a “digitally printed” card or an “offset” print, and you may scratch your head in confusion and shrug. It’s okay! We’re here to help!

Digital Printing

Digital printing is what most people think of when they need copies made. The truth is, digitally printing is not just “Xeroxing” or copying, though. Now it’s the primary way that laser and inkjet printers work. A file is sent from a computer to the printer, and the printer interprets the information and lays toner on paper producing the finished piece. Most digital printers work using the CMYK color gamut (learn all about it in a previous post), or some combination of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black toner. These 4 colors are combined to approximate the hundreds-of-thousands of colors you see in your document or photo. The important thing to keep in mind is that digital printing can only APPROXIMATE color; and the colors it can produce will vary from machine to machine, and are even dependent on the type of paper it’s printed on–and even the weather! Moisture in the air can affect the way the ink appears when printed on a laser printer.

Digital printing is usually a little more expensive (especially for color) in smaller quantities. But the ease of the process allows for small quantities and faster turnaround times, where Offset Printing does not.

Offset Printing

If color matching is imperative, or you’re looking for the best price on large quantities, offset printing may be what you need. Typically you’ll find letterhead and envelopes printed with this method. One-color or two-color artwork is ideal for offset printing, as each color needs to be printed separately. If an image has 8 different colors in it, for example, each color is pulled from a can of ink and put into a printing press, then printed on the page. It can get expensive when printing multiple colors in this way. Digital printing can make those same 8 colors by mixing the 4 CMYK colors, but you don’t usually have that option with offset. Each color is represented by a can of ink.

Each color would then need to be washed out of the press after each run, so it’s time consuming. But, it’s perfect for printing 1000 sheets of red and black letterhead, or 5000 black & white envelopes. Large printing runs are the most cost effective, because once the ink is loaded up, paper can be continuously fed through the press without much intervention, and at a faster rate than digital printing. And as the addage says, “time is money”!

Offset press - magenta ink

These are just the basic broad strokes of the two major printing types. Obviously, there is more to each of them that, but this should give you some rudimentary idea of which one you may need to ask for when you are ready to show off that new logo for your business.

If you need any help deciphering the mysteries of printing, give us a call! We would love to help you take your brand to the next level.

A Custom Calendar for the New Year

custom calendarThe New Year is right around the proverbial corner, which means you’re probably in the market for a new wall or desk calendar. Avoid the holiday shopping traffic when you are ready for a fresh calendar by letting us create a custom calendar for you! Send us your favorite photos and we’ll do the rest. We can even add your special dates and holidays, like birthdays and anniversaries!

Calendars aren’t limited to the standard 12-months, either. We can add as many months as you want and the photos to match. 14, 16, 24 months…the sky’s the limit!

Ever wonder where our calendar originated? Here is a great article with a brief history and 6 other things you may not know about the Gregorian calendar.

Custom Cards Make It Special

Custom Cards and greetings from Austin, TX

While it may be too early for some to be thinking about Christmas (we haven’t even had Thanksgiving dinner, yet!), it’s not too early to think about creating custom cards for you to send.

We’ve all been at the stores looking over the designs, trying to find the perfect cards to send. Why not spend that time with us working together to create the look and feel that’s personal to you? We can add family photos to the design, pictures of recent weddings, anything you want.

Let us help you create something special for your loved ones.

A Banner Year – Pop-up Banners

Pop-up Banners

Bigger isn’t always better, but it can be when you need to get the word out about your event or product. That’s why banners and posters are so important when you’re promoting your business. Everyone has seen those standard vinyl banners hanging up all over town, but you can try something a little different: invest in a pop-up banner! They are highly portable and reuseable, and they don’t require any special attachments or fasteners to display. No matter what type of space you’ll be in, pop-up banners can easily “pop up” to help you spread the word.

Let us help you design and create the perfect point-of-sale display or convention banner today! Call or email us for a quote!

pop-up banners

A Wedding to Remember

Wedding Ring white-rings-decoration-macro

Planning a wedding is stressful, with so many more things to think about than you can imagine. Once “yes” has been said, you start telling your friends and family, and they’ll respond with so many questions you haven’t even had time to consider. When it comes to your special day, your wedding starts making impressions with your Save the Date’s. With years of design experience (and our own weddings) we know what you’ll need to think about when it comes to getting your wedding information out in a unique and stylish way. We can create your wedding stationery to start giving your family and friends the right feel of what your wedding day will bring. Quirky or traditional, whatever your style is, we’ll bring it to life on paper.

Get in touch, and let us help take the stress off and impress your future guests and family.

Logo Design

You already know that we make business cards, banners, and promotional items (along with a myriad of other products), but you may forget that we can jump-start your new company with a stellar logo design. Whether you just have the inkling of an idea, or a fully thought out business proposal, we can turn your design dreams into the reality of a brand new one-of-a-kind logo.

Even if you have NO ideas at all, you can meet with our designer who, with only broad strokes, can seemingly conjure a beautiful logo out of thin air. We will work with you until your new logo is perfect and is ready to be unleashed onto the world. Here are a couple examples of some logos we’ve come up with, just to give you a taste:

Logo DesignLogo Design

And to give you some food for thought on your next logo, here’s a short article from Fast Company to get you thinking about what will make your logo memorable.

Paper Weights Explained

paper stack
image via Philippe Put

Placing a print order can be a little similar to placing a pizza order. You need to know what type of crust you want (hand-tossed, deep dish, cheese stuffed), what kind of cheese or sauce you want, what toppings you want, and how many people you need to feed. How that information translates to printers is like this:

Paper weight
Color or Black ink
Size of what’s going to be printed
Quantity

The term “paper weight”, and number corresponding with each weight, refers to the thickness and sturdiness of the paper, not the actual weight of the sheet. Paper is also measured differently from lbs (#), to GSM, to point (pt) thickness (The point measurement is thicker than lb cover weights). There’s also text weight and cover weight, cover is another term for card stock. It’s a lot to know!

This is why paper weight is the part of the order that is normally the hardest one to answer when you’re not familiar with the options. Let’s try to make that easier…

Typical office printers run 20lb to 24lb matte “bond” or “text weight” paper.
24lb is often used for standard letterhead, flyers on a budget, and anything that doesn’t require a hefty weight.
If you’re going to be printing something double sided, it’s safer to go with a thicker paper to keep from ink bleed.

60lb text weight is an excellent choice for 2-sided printing with minimal show through.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the most popular things we print with paper weight options:
Brochures are printed on a range of 70lb – 100lb text and cover weights. 80lb gloss text weight is the standard glossy brochure paper stock used. It’s about as thick as a light magazine cover.
Standard business cards are normally printed on 100lb cover weight. If you’re wanting something heavier, 110lb, 14pt, or 16pt are great options.
Greeting cards are printed on a variety of weights 65lb – 110lb cover weight.
Postcards are also printed on a range 80lb – 110lb, and 12pt – 16pt.

We hope this will make your next order easier to place. We are always available to talk it through with you and show you options.