Design

Seeing your artwork come to life in print can be a one of the most satisfying experiences as a designer. Receiving your job back from the printers and holding your artwork in physical form can be amazing… but spotting print with unwanted changes or alterations can be a common frustration for designers that are new to the print process. By understanding how the print process works, you can design your artwork in ways to create print that will truly impress.   1. Understand the print process The one rule all designers know when designing for full colour printing is that you should use CMYK and...

Black is just black, right? Well, not really. On your computer screen it's certainly true that black is black, but when it comes to four colour CMYK printing there's slightly more to it than that. (Find out more about CMYK v's RGB) On screen, black is made from RGB values all set at zero and the absence of light will always display black. With CMYK, printing black is made from: Cyan: 0%Magenta: 0%Yellow: 0%Black: 100%   This is great for smaller text and graphics and will give you sharp reproduction. However, if your design has a large solid area of black the result will...

Who doesn’t love receiving a greeting card? Nothing says the festive period has started more than receiving your first Christmas card. While greeting cards are popular all year round (for birthdays, valentine's and just to say thank you), they really are a staple of the festive season. It feels like Christmas cards have been around for ages and they have. They really took off after the invention of the postage stamp by the Victorians in the mid 19th century. They had some very odd ideas about the kind of imagery to use on their seasonal greeting cards. Our personal favourite has to be of clown...

If you’re a photographer or an artist, you know that reproducing artwork takes a lot of time and care. You may have heard of giclée printing and wondered what it is and how it differs from other types of printing. Read on to discover how to produce mind blowing prints without blowing your budget.   What Is Giclée Printing? Giclée is French, and translates as ‘squirt’ or ‘spray’; a bit of a posh way to describe the printing technique. Giclée prints are produced with top end inkjet printers which squirt/spray ink onto the paper. Although all giclée prints are inkjet...

You’ve been working hard, toiling away in front of the computer for hours, possibly days, not coming up for fresh air or a cup of tea. You’ve almost forgotten what the sky looks like because you’ve been working so hard. When the hard work is over, all you need to do is send the file to the printer, sit back and relax while waiting for the finished product to be delivered, right? Not quite, there’s one major step to take before you send off that file. It’s time to proofread. Proofreading is one of the most overlooked and most important areas...