Hi, if you are designing for 105mm x 148mm postcard, what size would you design in? What is the general rule for the size you design in? How do you know what size?
How do you mean; presumably you mean the safe area to design within? I like to leave an 8mm margin around my work, although generally 5mm is ok too.
No, add a 3mm bleed to the edge - so if you're designing for 105x148mm, it would become 111x154mm due to the 3mm either side (becoming 6mm overall). I was referring to the margin within the area, and leaving a safe area to ensure that no content is too close to the edge where trimming may impede.
If you are using Indesign then set up your page to have a 3mm bleed (as above) and when you make the pdf (for the printer) make sure you have the 'crops' box and the 'bleed' box ticked. A 5mm 'safe edge' is fine - unless the printer hasn't got a clue what they're doing!
To summarise; Final cropped size will be 105mm X 148.5mm Total create a file 111mm x 154mm (an extra 3mm each side for 'bled') with a resolution of 300dpi (this ensures the design will print to the correct scale) Extend all solid colour/images to the very edge (so they will be 111mm x 154mm in total, extending past the cropped size into the bleed). Keep all text and other elements about 8mm away from the edge or they may be sliced off slightly. You may want to read this if it's a bit baffling - Designing for Print – Setting Up Crops and Bleed
Such a frequent question we produced two minute film on the subject - Bleed in Graphic Design and Print.
so is it possible to design in photoshop and then send it to indesign to get it ready for print? i feel so much more comfortable with photoshop than any other program at this moment in time and i've already got my first client. i've designed the postcard/flyer but havent included bleeds or anything.
You can get the file ready for print in Photoshop, but I'd recommend getting used to InDesign ASAP. Photoshop is awful for anything to do with typography and once you're comfortable using InDesign, you'll wonder how you ever made anything in Photoshop
so is that the program most people use to create flyers etc? i will have to look into tutorials, ive got the creative suite so i have all the programs, just been using photoshop the longest and so alot more comfortable and familiar with it. do you use indesign to create everything? what's the difference? thanks for the help btw
Hiya Ant, I don't find much of a difference with regards to interface etc on Indesign. If you're used to Photoshop it won't take you long to get you to Indesign. There are great tutorials on Youtube on everything from Indesign to Illustrator (I'm always doing them lol) It's been such a long time since I worked because of various problems and we didn't even have Indesign when I last did it, everything was Quark produced which is totally different, the processes for print were totally different and I'm slowly trying to get back into the saddle and these tuts really help. But as Indesign is an Adobe program the overall look is pretty familiar, it was designed like that on purpose. Good luck! Have a look at this Stationery-Direct.co.uk | FAQ > Bleed
