Easiest way to explain Bleed

Steve

Steve

Member
I created a logo and a banner for a client a couple of weeks ago- He came back asking if I could make him a Letterhead with the logo. Great I thought....until he asked it to be made in word. I hate word at the best of times for anything graphic related. I was going to email him saying I'd suggest it be made in Photoshop or any other package that's better than Word and explain about Bleeds.

What is the easiest way to explain it that a client will understand and is there anything else you folks would suggest?
 
Hi Steve

Your client is probably looking to print these himself at home, hence asking for a word document. The only problem is he will never be able to have them printed commercially in the future should he choose to do so.

Personally I would design them in illustrator or photoshop and export to high resolution PDF, this way he can print them at home and commercially at a later date if needed. Remember to remove the 3mm bleed on his PDF as his home printer will not (I doubt) be able to print right to the edge of the page, also supply a PDF with bleed (if needed).

Here you go...

Printer's Bleed

Other design information on our FAQ page may also be of use, take a read...

Stationery-Direct.co.uk | Frequently Asked Questions

We also offer FREE Print Templates for download, these may also help.
 
Cheers Damon - using one of your templates already :icon_smile:

Good idea about supplying 2 documents.

Also sorry if I come across as a noob here - new to letterheads (can you tell?) but if they print them out ready to be used, Then go into word and type their letter, do they then just set up margins etc so that printer doesn't print over the top of the letterhead artwork?

Used to just doing graphics for web use and general printing. All this professional printing with bleeds etc is new to me.
 
Steve said:
Also sorry if I come across as a noob here - new to letterheads (can you tell?) but if they print them out ready to be used, Then go into word and type their letter, do they then just set up margins etc so that printer doesn't print over the top of the letterhead artwork?
Click to expand...

Exactly :icon_smile:
 
Hi Steve

It actually sounds like your client is after a Word Template. Basically, you can insert 300dpi tiff files into the header and footer of a Word document. Double click the images after you've inserted them into the header/footer, set the scaling to 100% and "position the picture behind text". As you click back into the page your header and footer images will be grayed out, Print the template to check and see if the whole page prints out properly, if it does, save it as a .dot (document template).

Your client can set this as their default template when they start a new document up in Word, they type away as normal but the margins are automatically set so typing begins below the header. That way they can save letter-headed .pdf files by using print to .pdf and they can print out on simple letterheads for things like invoices.

It's something we're asked to do at work every now and again if a client doesn't want to pay for printing or only wants a few letterheads at a time. Most designs have to be kept quite simple with no block colour running to the edges of the page because of the inability to bleed.

Pete
 
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