Digital to physical

When you’re creating designs for a business, keeping consistency between their online and offline look is essential. Just because a design looks great on the screen doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be prepared for print marketing- especially with how much there is to keep track of between digital & physical media.

So today we’re going over some places in your designs were you’ll want to take extra care as you prep for making prints & other physical marketing materials!

Imprint & bleed

While printing & cutting out materials, like business cards, you might be sent Imprint & Bleed area sizes for your file.

The Imprint is the area of your design that will show up on the final product.
The Bleed is the overall design that is printed, before being cut out.
Printing & cutting out merchandise can oftentimes be slightly imprecise, so you will put a safety Bleed area on designs sent off for print. A Bleed is usually 0.125″ extended around your main design, in a space where your background stretches onto. This means that even if the cut is slightly imprecise, your background will still show up just fine.

All main elements & text are put inside the imprint area, and even in some cases, a smaller area within the imprint so that the text doesn’t get too close to the cut line.

Best File Formats

Different file formats have different uses! Generally we mainly use .AI (Adobe Illustrator) or .EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) file types to transfer vector designs.

Various print companies you work with may have different file types they prefer for their machines. Some might want a variation of a .PDF, or maybe even an .SVG

For print artwork, we sometimes receive vector files to edit that have non-vector, pixel based images or text in them! We can always convert these to vector with some work; but be sure to check your design for these before sending them off. Just because something is saved as an .EPS, .AI, or .SVG doesn’t mean it is a vector design.

And to businesses paying for design work:
Make sure you have a vector or high definition file of your graphics from your designer! Your logo files are one of the most important things for your business, so it’s important to keep them on hand.

Overall…

Knowing these aspects of printing design will save you a lot of frustration & money later down the line! When you’re creating physical materials, every misprint, bad cut, or off color is money spent.

This is just scratching the surface of the digital to physical pipeline, but it’s great to have a general idea of what to keep in mind when you’re ready to dive in!