Importance of adding bleed to print file

Adding Bleed To Your Artwork finished artwork

While lot of graphic designers overlook the importance of adding bleed to their finished files, it is quite common to expect a  call from their client or the printer to fix the issue.

What is bleed?

Bleed is an external margin all around the artwork for safe trimming to avoid the white border. If the artwork didn’t come with bleed it is impossible to achieve a clear finished product without white edges.

In printing term Bleed is used to describe a document which has images or elements that touch the edge of the page, extending beyond the trim edge and leaving no white margin. When a document has external margin, it must be printed on a larger sheet of paper and then trimmed down so that the final product is clean without white border.
Your artwork must extend 3mm further than the desired final size of your print (this is called external bleed). This extra room is standard printing practise and gives you the piece of mind that your design will still look exactly how you imagined it even if there is a small margin of error in the guillotining process.
You also need to be aware of internal bleed. This means that your core design or text mustn’t go within 3mm of the desired print size.

Please make sure when sending a job that the size of print you select matches the size of your artwork (your external bleed should extend your artwork by 3mm around each side of your final print size)
Extend your background 3mm past your print size, keep your core design within 3mm of the print size and ensure your artwork matches the size of print you select when ordering a job. Supplying an error free file helps to avoid unwanted delay in production.

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