newbie questions - easy answers for you people :)

bamme

Senior Member
Hi guys

Ive just finished making my first ever set of logos and business stationery EVER (im 100% a webdesigner.. never print..) and am wondering if ive got everything right in terms of working for print purposes..

Ive used indesign, and also made use of transparency in my drop shadow layer.

the files are at: http://www.ameliealden.com/indesign.zip

Any help as to where/if ive gone wrong anywhere and how to fix for printwould be very much appreciated
Please help me out!

Thanks
Emma
 
Hi Emma,

Welcome to Design Forums. For logo design I always use Adobe Illustrator, so it may be worth re-creating the logo in Illustrator, with regards to checking your Business Stationery, if you can export it as a PDF and then upload and post the link it will be easier for people to check, rather than downloading your InDesign files :)

Thanks,
Greg
 
Hi Emma,

I just had a quick look and looks like the indesign files are cs4... I'm not fortunate enough to have that...
 
Greg said:
Hi Emma,

Welcome to Design Forums. For logo design I always use Adobe Illustrator, so it may be worth re-creating the logo in Illustrator, with regards to checking your Business Stationery, if you can export it as a PDF and then upload and post the link it will be easier for people to check, rather than downloading your InDesign files :)

Thanks,
Greg

Hi greg

The logo is an illustrator file, imported into indesign :) I wanted to show the actual indesign files because I suppose there isnt any way of detecting what colour settings and things ive used if its just a PDF, is that true?

Sorry for the awkwardness of the fact ive used CS4, didnt realise you couldnt open these in older versions :S

Will a pdf suffice for what i want to know (if ive got anysettings incorrect, how i could optimise it for print properly BEFORE i export as pdf.. etc)

Thanks
Emma
 
Hi Emma,

For pdf'in for print the main thing is that everything is CMYK (provided your not using pantone colours?) all images are 300dpi and you include crop marks and bleed. Let me know if you not sure what these are and I'll explain.

When supplying to a printers you can also provide your packaged indesign files (file/package) then indesign will create a folder with your .indd file, links (images) and fonts, that way if the printers need to alter anything they have the files. Litho printers will have a people working pre-press for pdf'in imposition etc, many would preffer to pdf themselves to their own settings.
 
emmaburge said:
The logo is an illustrator file, imported into indesign :) I wanted to show the actual indesign files because I suppose there isnt any way of detecting what colour settings and things ive used if its just a PDF, is that true?

Sorry for the awkwardness of the fact ive used CS4, didnt realise you couldnt open these in older versions :S

Good to hear :)
I'm only running CS2 here, just had a quick search and saving down for previous versions of InDesign sounds like it's a real pain!

First, in InDesign CS4, export the document to the InDesign CS3 Interchange (INX) format. Second, make sure that the computer running InDesign CS3 is updated with the appropriate plug-ins so that it can open the exported INX file. The person running InDesign CS3 can obtain the compatibility plug-ins by choosing Help > Updates and following the prompts. Plug-ins can also be installed from the Adobe website: Choose Support > Updates in the Adobe website, and go to the InDesign Downloads page.

If you can save as a print-ready PDF as tbwcf mentioned then perhaps we can look at that and look for any obvious issue for you as a starting point.

Greg
 
tbwcf said:
Hi Emma,

For pdf'in for print the main thing is that everything is CMYK (provided your not using pantone colours?) all images are 300dpi and you include crop marks and bleed. Let me know if you not sure what these are and I'll explain.
.

This would be quite helpful although I think i have a basic understanding
CMYK - print colour rather than RGB which is web
Pantone - ??? Bit confused about this one.. is this also called Spot colour? And when would you use this over CMYK?
300dpi - resolution - i think this is automatic on Indesign to be set like this but dont know for sure.. Ive now uploaded the pdfs to:

www.ameliealden.com/ab.zip

There is one definite thing im a bit stuck on. Thats 'knocking out' areas of colour that are underneath/overlapping other areas of colour, instead of the printer printing both colours ontop of eachother (whilst a web document would just automatically only show one colour - whichever one was on top)

Thanks for help people, this forum is really friendly.. and some great links to others websites too

Emma
 
Hi Emma,

CMYK is Cyan, Magenta, Yellow & Black (key) - which are mixed together to make the colour you want, like with RGB (think you've got that).

Pantone colours are like pre-mixed colours, think of it like buying a tin of paint from B&Q (other diy stores are available). You would use this either when printing stationary & it only uses one/two colours, rather than using 4 tins of paint to make them you can just use 2. The colour will also stay very consistant that way. Alternatively you might use a pantone if you have a "special" colour on top of your exisiting CMYK for example it's not possible to create a bright orange from CMYK, if you notice magazines will often use a spot colour somewhere for a particular colour like a floresent orange.

You'll need to add crops and bleed to the pdf before sending to the printers here's a link that might make more sense than me trying to explain http://www.scubaprint.co.uk/docs/pdf-for-print.pdf
 
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