Notes-From-NewPrint.md

LET ME MAKE A LIST:

1. For the love of all the print gods above, design in CMYK. Do not use Pantones unless you are intending to actually print with Pantones. if there are corporate colours you are trying to match, it is far far better for everyone involved for you to make a palette of CMYK equivalents of the Pantones you are trying to match, and design with that. Your files and colours will be consistent, I will not have to convert the Pantones, and your customer will be happy.

2. PDFs. I want PDFs exported directly from your design software. It will embed your fonts, maintain your layers, preserve your vectors, and make life easy for whichever prepress technician get your files (trust me if we LOVE good files and silently praise designers that give them to us).

3. Do NOT design files intended for print in Photoshop EVER. You can edit photos then place the photos in InDesign, but Photoshop is not a print design program. It does not have mechanisms to include the bleed as an addition to the trim box. Text does not remain text but becomes a clipping mask over a rectangle of whichever colour you made the text. Vectors are not supported, and exports are not easily edited.

4. When designing in Illustrator or Indesign:

• Make the art board the FINAL SIZE of your piece then use the BUILT IN function to add bleed. This has several advantages. You will be able to see the edge of the sheet, and if you are a smart cookie and use margins as well, you can make sure nothing is too close to the edge (things that are not supposed to bleed should be a minimum of 1/8" from the edge). also, when you export your print-ready PDF, your file will contain a Trim Box and a Bleed box. these boxes are detected by much of the software used to process and prepare files for output, be it the program that checks the files, or the ones that make the layouts for the press, or the one that outputs the plates.

• Just because you move something off the artboard, or make the stroke zero, or bury it in the bottom layer and pile stuff on top of it, DOES NOT MEAN IT'S GONE. It is still there ruining my day. It bloats your file size and increases the processing time. as well, these can cause issues when you export. I have seen files where the file ended up with all sorts of weird clips and strange artifacts, because of the settings and because there was all sorts of extra crap all over the place.

-A note about clipping masks. USE SPARINGLY. Clip only when absolutely necessary. If you have a clip within a clip within a clip within a compound path within a clip, I hate you. If you have a vector made up of several grouped paths, and only need a little piece of it, delete as much as you can, THEN clip the paths that are partially outside your final shape. this ties into the above, just because you cannot see it does not mean it's gone.

-Text and Fonts: -If you want black text, make it 100% K. The only time you are allowed to make black text Rich Black is when it is a big fat font and it's a big fat title, like over 30pts. Press Operators HATE 4 colour text. It is a big pain in the keister for them to register (make sure all four channels are printing in the exact same place and line up EXACTLY), and even if you get it 99% there, it will look fuzzy and gross if even 1 channel is off register. If you need grey text, make it a % of black. -That clean, thin, modern font may look stunning on your minimalistic design, but if it's too small, it will become a blurry illegible nightmare. Printing uses dots, each channel (C,M,Y,K) has its dots at a different angle to make what's called a rosette. this is how we make millions of different colours out of just 4 inks. but these dots can only get so small before they vanish. any line less than 1pt is at risk of vanishing. this applies to borders as well. -If you want a drop shadow on your text, use the actual drop shadow function. Do not copy your text, make it like, 50%, and put it underneath. -You can use that fancy font you found on the internet, but be aware of the license of that font. Some are for personal use only, and if I try to run it through my system, it will not go through. if in doubt, save a copy that has the fonts outlined. (of course you always need to keep an un-outlined version so you can go back and edit it later)

-Rich Black: If you want a really deep solid black, use C=40 M=30 Y=30 K=100. This gives a really dark black, but does not make the ink coverage stupidly heavy. If you just make it 100% of each channel, you are telling us to put 400% ink coverage on that piece of paper. Ink is mostly liquidy chemical vehicles that contain the pigments. the sheets do need to dry before we can do other things to them. depending on the paper and the coverage, we might have to let sheets dry for days before we can even print the second side, let alone cut, fold, or bind.

-Whites: NEVER OVERPRINT WHITE. Overprinting means that we print ink over top of other inks. (ie, Yellow over Magenta gives red, Yellow over Cyan gives Green, Magenta over Cyan gives Dark Blue) White ink is only used in very special circumstances, like on clear or black stock, and is expensive and annoying to use. It may actually be easer, cheaper, and give better results to foil-stamp in white rather than print in white. If your design has a white box, that means we just don't put any ink there. Overprinting white means your white will disappear.

-If you ever have any questions about anything regarding file set-up, ask the printer. We love it when people want to make sure they do things correctly. I'd rather spend 10 minutes answering your questions and helping you design your files properly if it means I don't have to spent 1 hour fixing a file to make it print correctly. Life Lesson If you ask your printer questions about file set-up, or paper, or finishing and they do not want to help, that's a red flag. That means they do not care about your files, and probably do not care about making sure your job prints correctly. Your printer should be a partner who you feel comfortable asking questions of and who wants to help you.

5. Consider the final 3D piece. -For something that's getting folded, make a mock-up. Take a piece of paper and fold it so you can see the panels and folds and orientations. -For a book, consider the binding method. Saddle stitched books must have a page count that is an increment of 4, so if you give me 22 pages, either I'm adding two blank pages or you're removing two pages. Perfect bound, spiral, wir-o books must have even page counts. -If it's a kit-folder you will have to design the pocket upside down, they will be right-side up when they are folded -If it's getting die-cut or drilled, the same safe-zone rules apply to those areas as the edge of the sheet -trying to register UV or Foil to text or thin lines is a nightmare and I will tell you that it will not look good -Silk lamination and coatings can make colours look softer, so can certain uncoated textured paper -Textured paper can also make for uneven coverage, if that's what you want it can look awesome, if not it looks like crap. in general, a design with tons of photos should not be done on textured paper

These are a lot of small specific things.

The main points are:

-Work clean. Clean art board, clean file names, clean file directories.

-Think of the poor guy who will be putting the ink on the paper to make your design

-Think of the poor guy who will cut, fold, laminate, foil, uv, or bind your design

-Only design what is necessary, don't use pantones or clipping masks or compound paths or anything fancy and complicated unless it is crucial to the final product

-Consider your final product, and how the folding, binding, cutting, and finishing will impact your design

-Fancy stuff is expensive and takes time. Each additional bindery or finishing operation your design requires is more time, more money, and another chance for something to go wrong. Obviously printers are not out to make mistakes, but things happen.

-PAPER IS SUPER IMPORTANT. It's like, 90% of the piece. The colour, texture, thickness, and opacity of the paper can change the way the design looks. If you put too much ink on paper or the humidity is too high, it gets wavy. If the humidity is too low, it gets brittle. if it's too thick or we're folding against the grain of the paper, it can crack and we may have to score to prevent cracking (but it can crack anyways). if there's a heavy coverage on a fold, it can crack. Paper can also take a meh design and make it amazing. It can also take a stunning design and make it awful if you insist on using the wrong paper. Plus my favourite part of print trade shows is getting paper swatch books

-Ask questions. We're here to help. We get as much out of see a stunning final piece as you do. We want to make sure that you get what you want, but also that it will work out correctly. Alternatively, if your printer does not want to help, you may be headed for heartbreak. A good printer will tell you if what you are looking for is not possible or will be very difficult, but they will also have suggestions as to other options that will work and give you the same or similar results.

-If you ever get the chance to do a plant tour of a printshop or go to a print trade show, DO IT. It's super interesting. You get free stuff from trade shows. You get to see big complicated machines running (both at the shows and in the shops). It will also help you understand the process and the physical limitations we have to deal with when trying to make your idea a reality. You can ask questions of the people who are running (or selling) the machines, you can see things in progress, plus it's fun! (Yes I am a giant nerd)