Ohmybrand creative director Nadya Parshina has compiled a list of 10 golden rules for preparing a layout for printing.

Follow this checklist to relieve stress from prepress and get what you planned and not what suddenly came out.

1. For prepress, prepare the file in CMYK in Adobe Illustrator. Even if you really want to, resist the temptation to use Corel Draw – it is not as good as you think, if only because it calculates curves poorly

2. Do not forget about allowances – colored dies or pictures should protrude 5 mm beyond the cutting line. If you feel sorry, then at least 3

3. The same applies to important design details – they should not come closer than 3 mm to the edge, otherwise they may be cut off, and no one will appreciate the ingenious idea

4. Convert all fonts to curves

5. Each operation in the printing house should be presented on a separate layer to make it easier for printers. For example: white, CMYK, relief stamping, selective varnish, die cutting

6. Name the layers clearly. This is exactly the case when creativity is superfluous and it is better to be Captain Obvious

7. Excess spot colors must be killed in cold blood. At this moment, somewhere the printer will breathe a sigh of relief.

8. All pictures should be paired and then folded into one folder.

9. Files must be in pdf, ai, eps formats – depending on the settings and equipment of the printing house. Study in advance the wishes of the production workers – as a rule, they are posted on the website of the printing house or are sent on demand

10. Finally, do not forget to attach a jpg as a sample of what you should end up with. It will be possible then, together with the workers of the printing house, to play the game “find 100 differences”

Source: wtpack.ru