Tips to Create Your Printed Masterpiece

There are many things to keep in mind when creating a quality printed product. While there are endless combinations of colors and special effects that can be printed or displayed on a screen, the image you see on your monitor does not necessarily reflect the image you will get from a final printed product.

Here are a few dos and don’ts for when you create your printed masterpiece:

• Don’t create documents on a larger size paper and draw in crop marks.
• Do create your document the same size as the piece will print. For example, if the finished size of a job is 7 1/4 x 10 1/2, don’t create the job 8 1/2 x 11.
• Don’t stylize fonts by using shortcuts for bold, italic, underline, etc.
• Do use fonts that are available in your pull-down font menu.
• Don’t copy and paste graphics into your document, as it will not create a link.
• Do import graphics into your document.
• Do use a bleed of at least 1/8” over the edge of the page if you desire printing to go to the edge of the page.
• Do use high-resolution images.
• Don’t create in CMYK if the color is spot color.
• Don’t use Microsoft programs such as Word, Publisher, or Powerpoint for desktop publishing. Instead, have a designer recreate it in a program such as InDesign, Quark, etc. If you do use a Microsoft program, for best results, download our print driver and print directly to our website.
  

If you’d prefer to avoid the technicalities, Solid Impressions will gladly handle your project from start to finish. Just give us your idea, and we’ll bring it to life!