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.

Click Image to View Larger

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!

Tags: Graphics, Technique / How-to / Why by Scott Gregson
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I would like for anyone who has not purchased a graphics suite or even just a paint program to consider CorelDraw Graphics Suite. The value is exceptional. You get several professional level graphics programs, CorelDraw, Photopaint, and a few others. Additionally, they include several thousand fonts, Clipart, and more. You will not get anything near that for the price.

I would not even look for the latest and greatest version. I would buy the last ‘even-numbered’ release not the current version. If you can find it, it will cost (usually) under 100 dollars. To by the same package from Adobe (including fonts, clipart, etc.) would run the better part of a grand if you found a deal.

I am not a ‘presenter’ but from what I understand the CorelDraw Graphics suite is the perfect companion for PowerPoint. Rick Altman has for years taught PowerPoint workshops all across the US (probably elsewhere). One of the things he has promoted is the synergy of using CorelDraw with PowerPoint.

Now, all that said, CorelDraw and PhotoPaint, not to mention CorelRave (flash animations) are professional tools. They will have a steep learning curve. They are full strength, you will need to read the manuals, use the tutorials, go online and see how others used the program to get the result you need. ‘Course you do all that anyway – right!?

~s’all

Tags: CorelDraw by Scott Gregson
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