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Our five-point checklist will help you ensure your creative design prints exactly as expected.

In today’s marketing world many creatives design for both print and online media. Of course, artwork requirements differ for each form of media and even designers who design exclusively for print can accidentally miss something that will have a major effect on how their design will look when printed. It’s easy to overlook smaller, functional points when you’ve been concentrating on the design or layout and creative elements. That’s why it’s so important so run a checklist on your artwork prior to uploading it.

Here’s our five-point checklist to help you ensure your printed job perfectly matches your artwork.

1. Check your bleed
Make sure the artwork you supply includes 3mm bleed all around. With leaflet printing as with any print there’s always the possibility of a slight degree of movement on during printing process. Bleed ensures all graphics and images will run off the page where they’re supposed to. When saving artwork it’s easy to forget to add crop marks and bleed so make sure you check as we can’t add it later.

2. Check all colours are CMYK
Make sure that all colours are in CMYK mode throughout your document including in the original files of any placed images or graphics. If they’re saved as RGB your printer will convert these but some colours may look different to how they looked on your screen.

3. Check your image resolution
Any images you use in your leaflet should be 300dpi at the size they’ll appear in print. Often clients will send images from websites for inclusion and designers will use them as placeholders while they find or wait for print quality images. Over time it’s easy to forget this so it’s important to double- check all images before you send to print. A good idea is to mark or name low resolution, temporary images “LOW RES” so that you’re constantly reminded to replace it.

4. Make sure your type is easily read
Type that’s very small or reversed out of a solid colour or background image can be hard to read. It’s always best to print out your leaflet artwork at actual size rather than check type on screen as only then can you really tell if it’s legible.

5. Proof, proof and proof again
We know it sounds obvious but all designers know that after looking at an artwork over long periods it can become so familiar that errors or typos can go unnoticed. Proofread your artwork carefully, word by word. A second pair of eyes is very useful so let someone else check it too. It can’t be changed once the printing process has started.

At TradeDigitalPrint.ie we supply a full range of printed marketing and large format products to trade customers. We launched last year to supply a professional, Ireland based trade printing service and use market leading HP Indigo and high definition presses that supply the best digital and large format print you’ll find online. Our website allows trade customers to get instant prices, upload artwork, order and arrange delivery from a range of options. You can also download editable artwork templates and check out our support pages to find out more about designing specifically for digital print. For more information on our products and our trade leaflet printing service, to register as a trade customer or to order your printed leaflet today visit www.TradeDigitalPrint.ie or contact our specialised trade print team today.