How You Can Make Commercial Prints

By Author: Colleen Davis
Total Articles: 100
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It is always good to have a little chitchat with a Commercial printing company, this way you get into the process and understand the basics before actually going for it, much like what you do before you dip in a pool, you dip your toes first to test the waters and when you think its okay, you dive into it. Commercial printing is a simple process you can easily master given the right instructions.

1) Do you know what prints you need?
Think about the prints you need starting from the print type like – folders, brochures, business cards etc., then think about how you want its structure like the size, colors, frames, coatings etc.

2) Have you thought of the people who will be using or reading the prints?
Thinking about your target or potential readers or users while you are in the choosing stage will help you pick out the right ones that will ultimately work with your intention (which is to get their attention or make them use your prints).

3) Have you found printer yet?
If you answer yes to this, are you sure you found the best one? There are a lot of commercial printing companies today ...
... and there are also rotten eggs out there with the good ones.

4) Do you know where to start to create the design?
If you are new to designing, you probably have no idea where to start. The truth is you just need a good design program to make it. Choose the more user –friendly ones that have online tutorials to teach you the step by steps of designing. The more popular design programs are Photoshop and Corel Draw.

5) A few areas you may want to check before uploading your file to your printer:

• Design file type - You need to follow the file your printers says as is. They are requiring you to follow that file type because it will be easier for them to print your files. So if you want faster processing follow their requirements. Common allowable file types are eps, tiff, jpg and pdf.

• Font file - Not all fonts are created equal and some of them are not available to other programs so your printers may not be able to see the actual font you picked because it will be changed automatically by their programs to what ever font is available to them. To prevent this, imbed your font file to the design.

• Colors - Printers use the CMYK (Cyan Magenta Yellow Key) or the Panatone which has more colors available and since you are using a normal computer which usually uses RGB, you are likely to get a different shade or color from what you designed to your actual prints.

• Resolutions - To get that clear image and professional look, you need high resolutions. For a normal print size like A4 or A5, 300 dpi is a good resolution to save your files in.

• Print marks - Print marks are essential to guide your printers where to cut the prints and where to stay away from. Make sure all important images are within the caution zone and far way from the crop line.

Commercial printing, what ever process your printers tells you are one and the same. They may have variations but you will eventually realize they are pointing in the same direction just using different words to get there.

For more information, you can visit this page on commercial printing