Business Card Print Shops Requirements
Business card printing companies requirements, regarding color, resolution, image and text, bleeds, borders and backgrounds as well as format.
There are many printing companies, which may be at your service, when you decide to print business cards. However, you should be aware of the requirements of these companies, such as, for example, design and format of your business cards. Following are some tips, which can be instrumental, while printing your cards at a print shop.
Resolution
If you want to include photos or pictures taken from a digital camera, scanner or Internet, make sure they have a high resolution. Resolution is a key point for good quality of the ready-made picture. An image that looks quite good on the screen may have rough edges and appear blurry when printed. It is highly recommend that you should use an image that is 600 DPI at a size with bleed included. This will produce the highest quality of prints. Although an image as low as 300 DPI can still produce quality prints it is possible that it will look blurry. To make sure your image has acceptable resolution, zoom it on your document until 600%. If the picture still looks good, the resolution is acceptable.
Colors
Note:
- CMYK ("C" – Cyan (blue), "M" - Magenta (red), "Y" - Yellow, "K" - Black) is a typical printing process, based on printing inks used in 4-color process printing.
- RGB (red, green, and blue) is another type of color profile. The monitor mixes these three colors to produce other colors.
Keep in mind that some colors look different on the screen than in reality. The reason for this is that computer color space is different from that seen on printed materials. Computer screen uses RGB color space, and a good final printed result is seen in CMYK color space. In printed materials, the RGB color combination cannot be reproduced exactly, so computer-processed images must be changed into the CMYK equivalent in ink colors, which do not always look the same.
Images and Text
To make sure that the text and graphics fit well on your card, don’t place them close to the edges. There should be at least 1/8 inch from the edges to avoid some elements of images or text getting trimmed during the cutting.
Bleeds
Most printing companies require bleed when printing business cards. There can happen a shifting of materials while printing, and bleed provides a safe margin of error, reducing any white lines on the edges of your cards. The graphics should go off the page to insure proper printing.
Bleed size requirements may vary in different print shop. Most print companies, however, will provide a template and more instructions to help you with the task.
Borders and Backgrounds
If you use a regular background or border in your business card, it must slightly go off the edges of the card; otherwise clear area might appear on the edges of the ready-made card.
How to Arrange Your Materials for a Printing Company
Print Shop File Format Preferences
Always choose file format that is supported by the printing company you are going to deal with. PDF (Portable Document Format) and TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) formats are those accepted by most print shops.
PDF vs. TIFF
When you change your business card into PDF all fonts are embedded automatically. However, they may sometimes show improperly in the printing company. It mainly depends on the software and equipment they utilize. TIFF will be a nice solution to avoid problems with fonts, while retain the same quality. You may also bring the materials in both PDF and TIFF formats, which will ensure proper unpacking.
Once you've made your business card, save it on the disk in the necessary format (the filename extension — PDF or TIFF —not to be omitted).
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