Choosing a good printing service provider is just one part of ensuring that printers will print your design the way you want them. The other part is preparing a printer-ready artwork. We’ve listed down the top three most common errors people make when prepping their designs for print to help you avoid them.

The Three Common Mistakes

Choosing a good printing service provider is just one part of ensuring that printers will print your design the way you want them. The other part is preparing a printer-ready artwork. We’ve listed down the top three most common errors people make when prepping their designs for print to help you avoid them.

1. Artworks do not have bleeds. Most people don’t put bleeds in the design layout before sending them to printers, which is impractical because bleeds are essential in making sure the prints come out precisely as you envision them. The printers need bleeds because they cut the printed materials by bulk through a machine that moves ever so slightly during cutting, so without the bleeds, you might see white lines on the edge of the prints. Therefore, ensure that the final artwork has images or background extended to the edges by about 0.07 or 0.08-inch. This way, you won’t see the white lines of the paper when printers trim your artwork to size. 

2. Artwork is sent in low resolution or contains low-res images. Almost everybody thinks they can pull something off the internet, include them in their artwork, and expect it will come out beautifully in print, but that is hardly the case. Most internet images are only about 72 dpi instead of the 300 dpi minimum required for good-quality printing. It is imperative to ensure the artwork and the images used in the design are high-quality and not too small. When working with Photoshop or other design software, ensure that the photos and graphics you include are correctly linked to your design before exporting and sending them to the printers. Because if images don’t connect properly, your final artwork will only have low-res placeholders for photos, which will not look good on print.

3. Issues with fonts used. Always use a precise font version for your designs. For example, use Helvetica Bold or Helvetica Italic instead of Helvetica Regular and then press bold or italic. Adding an outline on a regular font is also not recommended because before or during exporting the artwork out of the design program, modified fonts may not look the same on print as on the design software file. 

Get Professional Artwork Consultation 

If you’re not confident about your designing skills, consider working with printing services like Foote Printing, which provides quality prints and graphic design services.