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Marie-Josée J.Fleming

E-mail: mj.fleming@hotmail.com

Print Tips

Here you will find tips on everything to do with the print side of graphic design.

10 Tips to better print design


 

With these tips I hope to help novice designers on their way to better print design. The tips are for print design in general: doesn't matter if it's a brochure or a poster or a identity. In no particular order. 1

Remember to bleed

The bleed is the part on the side of your document that gives your printer that small amount of space to move around paper and design inconsistencies. No matter what guidelines they have on their site, the printer will use anything you throw at them. A 3mm bleed on all sides is a safe standard for your work.

The settings in InDesign are right there in the new file dialog… but hidden! You need to hit the 'more options' button before they become visible. If you already have a document open you can find them in the file > document setup dialog. Read more in the article What is bleed.

CMY

Bleed settings in Adobe InDesign

2. Overprint is fun

Is your budget limiting you to only 2 Pantone(PMS) colors? No problem. Try to experiment with overprint options to get a look with more depth with a limited color palette.

You can even work with photographs with only 2 Pantone's, just do them in duotone or monotone.

3. Think outside the paper

The human mind fills in gaps and will see the bigger picture if you aim for it. Using the border of your paper can be great fun and another tool to work with.

Thinking inside…

Think outside the box in print design

Thinking outside…

Obviously, this is not the final solution to all your design problems. It should help you to see that your work doesn't end at the edge of the paper.

4. Paper size standards are great, but don't let them hold you back

Square booklets, for instance, make for a more interesting reading experience, while smaller sizes (A5 for example) are much easier to take with you. Fly away from that standard A4 and take some risks.

5. People read

In conflict with some designers of the last 5 years I still think form follows function. This means in print design: If your working on something that contains textual content concentrate on the content.

You should use typography as a element in your design, however you should always aim for optimal readability.

6. Amount of content: less is more

If you have some kind of idea that there's too much on your page; there is indeed to much on your page. Define what's really necessary and remove any visual noise. It may sound cliche but it's true: less is more. If the client makes you cram too much content on one page, tell them.

7. Stick to the grid

Working with grids is the key to any good design. Using it's proportional relations, composition guidelines for the base of your design is a good idea.

Grid example in magazine

A simple but well excecuted 3-column grid in a magazine

Don't always go for the standard 3-column setup. A 7 column setup offers a lot of playful combinations… 2 column overlaps, a 3/3/1 setup with a sidebar and so on…

8. Typography is king

If the typographical setup is bad, no amount of lines or other elements will fix it. The fonts you use the most in your project set the voice for it's overall feel: don't pick the first font you like; think about what voice it should have and the best way to communicate this to your target audience. You can have a lot of fun with the basic well designed fonts: Helvetica, Swiss or Akzidenz Grotesk will save you from the worst typographic horror-scenario's.

It takes a while to get to know a font. A good way to get good with a particular font is to pick a list of 5 to 8 fonts you think could work for you and concentrate on those. That's also a good way to find out which fonts mix and which won't.

9. Invert

Need to give a bigger impact to a quote or logo? Invert it. White on black (or on any dark color for that matter) will always give your design or typography more strength.

Less impact

Normal

More impact

Inverted

Be careful with smaller type sizes (8pt. and lower) as these will be possible problems for your printer as ink always flows around a little when just printed. This effect is called trapping. Of course this all depends on what kind of paper it's printed on, printing speed and other factors. Ask your printer about exceptions.

10. Be demanding about photographic content

You should always demand high quality source material to work with. When working with photographic content for example the "trash in, trash out" rule applies. A good photo can take your work to another level, a badly lit low resolution photo will ruin your work. Most clients will send you what they have for grabs… most of the time they don't understand quality or image resolutions. Bug them a bit and they'll magically come up with better material.

These are by no means rules or guidelines, just some tips. If you have any questions or suggestions feel free to contact me.

5 Free Awesome Graphic Design Tutorial Sites You Should Check Out

by Bakari Chavanu

 

Whether you’re a graphic designer or a wannabe just starting out life with Photoshop or other image editors, you’ll surely need a helping hand. One of the easiest ways to get started with image design is to follow online guides and graphic design tutorials.

Due to the vastness of the Internet, there are literally hundreds and thousands of graphic design tutorial sites for building design skills. Some better than others but which is the best? Save your time — don’t bother searching.

I’ve selected five sites in which the tutorials are easy to follow and provide both basic and advance skills for novices like myself.

 

Ideabook.com

graphic design tutorials

Ideabook is one of the most long standing and recognized design idea resource sites. It’s produced by Chuck Green, who has written numerous desktop publishing books and other resources, most notably the Before&After Page Design book that provides very accessible ideas for designing newsletters, ads, brochures, fliers, stationery and more.

His site provides over three dozen free graphic design tutorials on topics, including logo design, using grids, readable pages, typography, using clip art, and finding the right commercial printer. A few interesting tutorials includes, Sell your site with a ‘Webcard, Logo ideas: A transparency project, Step-by-step logo design and Grids: an invisible foundation.

CreativePro

I’ve been subscribing to Creativepro.com for a few years now, mainly because it offers a variety of tutorials and reviews on a wide of variety of creative content ideas. While this site is not exclusively focused on graphic design, its how-to section is chock-full of tutorials on topics and skills including, Drawing Paths with Photoshop‘s Pen Tool (a required skill for any designer), bold vs. italic typeface, or one for simply designing a custom Twitter Background. You can sort the site’s how-to topics by “print and design” to make it easier to find specific articles.

graphic design tutorial sites

The Graphic Reporter

Author Lesa Snider’s The Graphic Reporter doesn’t have lots of tutorials, but she has three very useful ones for novice designers, including Picking the Perfect Palette: How to choose colors that go together, Basic Design principles for the design challenged, and Let Your Graphics Do the Talking. Snider has written a Missing Manual tome for Photoshop CS4, and she’s a regular contributor to Layer’s Magazine.

About.com: Desktop Publishing

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I’m a little hesitant about recommending About.com because I find the ads and layout of the site somewhat obtrusive, but its Desktop Publishing section provides hundreds of step-by-step tutorials on topics including choosing fonts and artwork, working with images, designing for Web and On-Screen, working with text, etc. Many of the graphic design tutorials are not well illustrated, but if you can follow step-by-step instructions, it’s a useful resource site.

graphic design tutorials

A few examples include: “Five Ways to use Dingbat Fonts“, “Creating an Embedded Clipping Path,” and understanding Kerning and Tracking.

Psdtuts+

One of the most prolific free tutorial sites is Psdtuts+. Its design tutorials will blow you away, but I would say they are largely for intermediate and advance graphic design application users. That is, if you have experience using Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign; you will find the well illustrated tutorials highly accessible.

A few recent tutorials that stand out for me include, “How to Design a Print-Ready Flier with Photoshop and Illustrator“, “Creating a Set of Digital Painting Icons“, and “Dirty Design: Creating a Grungy Thriller Book Cover“.

All the sites tutorials are produced by professional designers and they typically the resource files used in the tutorials.

So what graphic design tutorial sites do you recommend? What do you look for in a useful tutorial?