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What comes first - the product or the design? 99 times out of 100 the design will always come first, and that makes perfect sense. But there are occasions when consideration of the product should come first as it will make a huge difference to the final printed piece.
Even though we work with professional designers every day it is still a wonder to us how many simple mistakes are made because not enough thought has gone in to the finished printed result; more importance has been attached to how good the design looks on screen as to whether it is printable.
Five Top Design Tips for a Professional Product:-
1) It is not possible for a litho printer to print white! Areas of white in a design are created by leaving that area free of ink, using the unprinted paper to create the area of white. Often artwork arrives with us that incorporates white as a 'layer' - the bad news is that it can't be printed and the artwork needs to go back for a re-design.
2) Metallic inks generally don't print at all well on uncoated papers. They tend to be absorbed in to the paper and all the shine is lost. A costly disappointment for someone.
3) Uncoated papers can print much darker than coated papers due to the 'blotting paper' effect of the material making the black ink dot spread out. This is something we point out on every product page on our website; please take note!
4) Supplying artwork with 10 spot colours might look fantastic on screen but will be fantastically expensive to print. Remember, each spot colour is a separate printing plate and more often than not additional cylinder wash-ups will be required as well. Are you sure converting to CMYK won't do?
5) Printing large areas of solid colour can sort the men from the boys. Typically a solid black background is supplied to us a black only - seems reasonable you might think. To ensure a consistently rich black we always ask for a 'shiner' to be included under the black. The best pure black is actually printed as 50% cyan, 30% magenta, 30% yellow and 100% black. Weird eh?
Also, just a reminder. A solid colour printed on the reverse of a letterhead looks fantastic but is a demon to dry, and depending upon the type of paper specified may never dry properly at all - resulting in set-off and 'bruising'.
If you need any advice on what will and won't print successfully don't be afraid to ask us. After all, it's what we do for a living!
