Bleed, Crop Marks, Safe Area, etc
In order to serve my customers better, I wanted to write this little reference article. I find that people who are not in the Graphic Arts industry do not understand many important terms. This creates a communication problem. Hopefully, this post will help a little.
Terms like: Bleed, Crops, Crop marks, Live Area, Safe Area and Safety Area provide a basis for communicating between a print customer and the printer (another misunderstood term – a ‘printer’ being the company that produces your printed piece). I suggest, if you are going to work with people who run printing equipment (not copiers, desktop inkjets, lasers, etc.), that you purchase a book called: Pocket Pal.
Here we go, these are the ones that cause me problems with my customers:
Bleed – the extra image area that will be trimmed off after printing. It is common for offset print piece to have a 1/8″ bleed. Full-bleed means all edges, right-bleed means right edge only, etc.
Crops / Crop Marks – lines that show where the printed piece is to me trimmed.
Safety/Safe Area – the area you are “wise” to keep important elements of your art within. This is due to the variations in the printing process. Put something important outside this area and it might get trimmed off.
For a “Full Bleed” U.S. sized business card, final size 3.5″ x 2″, with a 1/16″ bleed, your art would measure 3.625″ x 2.125″ (3-5/8″ x 2-1/8″). It will be printed and trimmed down to the correct final size.
Please, if I need to edit this article to make more sense to you, post a comment.
Thank you!