Tips on Effective Design and Type Settings
The following tips will help you create an image and style that will project the right first as well as lasting impression that is so important to success. The better your published documents look, the better you and your company looks. That’s why a consistent, coordinated and quality look or identity is so critical in all your printed communications. We’re confident you’ll find these tips useful. Click on any of the following sections to find useful tips:

• Special Settings and Tips for B&W or Full Color Documents
• Tips on Effective Design and Type Setting
• Software and Media We Support
• Preparing and Sending Print Ready Desktop Publishing Files
• FAQ

Special Settings and Tips for B&W or Full Color Documents

Gutter
Make sure you to leave a gutter (a gutter is the space between the text and spine of the page) between folded pages. To allow for a quarter-inch margin on each page, the gutter will need to be a half-inch. Margins should be at least 3/8” on all edges of a page.

Full Bleeds
Creating a page that has a full bleed (ink all the way up to the edge of the sheet) requires that the page be printed on a larger size of paper than required for the finished publication. Full bleeds cannot be accepted for black & white document quantities under 1,000. Extra cost is required to trim the larger sheet of paper to desired finished size. If your page is designed to bleed, be sure to bleed to 1/8” beyond the image area. This will allow plenty of room for trimming and eliminate any of the paper showing at the edge of the page.

Color - - RGB vs. CMYK
Many desktop publishing software programs provide for creating your print communication piece in a choice of color spaces -- RGB or CMYK. Your computer monitor uses RGB (Red, Green and Blue), which are the primary colors of light, to display color images. When offset printing presses produce a full color image, they use a four color ink process called CMYK - - Cyan (blue), Magenta (red), Yellow and Black. As a result we recommend you create all full color documents in CMYK rather than RGB. CMYK is the format required for a print ready file. If we do a conversion for you from RGB to CMYK, we do a standard value conversion which may or may not yield the result you are looking for. RGB color may look good on your computer screen or desk top printer but may not produce the results you desire in an offset press printed piece. We offer low prices and quick turnaround by printing to a pleasing color standard through the use of standard ink densities. As a result, we make no guarantee that the color you see on your computer monitor or your ink jet or laser color printer will approximate your finished piece printed via the CMYK process on an offset printing press. This is due to the wide variations in color spaces, technologies and calibrations of different display and printing devices.

Trapping
If colors touch or overlap the overlapping colors need to be trapped to produce the highest quality result. The minimum trapping is 0.1mm.

Color and Ghosted Images
Ghosting occurs when a printed image occurs where it is not intended. It happens most frequently with heavy or solid ink coverage areas on a sheet. Gas ghosting is a chemical type of image transfer from the front of one sheet to the back of another that can be caused by printing the second side of the form too soon or too large or heavy lifts being accumulated in the delivery end of a sheet fed press. Gas ghosting can also result from ink drying on one side being retarded or accelerated by ink fumes given off from the first side.

Mechanical ghosting is usually caused by the design or layout of the printed form. It occurs when a large amount of ink is printed in one area affects the ink density of another area. On an offset press, it results from abrupt changes in ink take off from the rollers of a sheet fed press as required by the design of the printed form. One solution is to have the solid areas well distributed throughout the sheet. Printing the heavy or solid ink area in a separate pass can sometimes prevent ghosting or changing the color sequence can also sometimes work but both of these options are often cost prohibitive. Since the design and ink coverage called for by the creator of the print job cause the potential for mechanical ghosting, Speedcolor assumes no responsibility for printed jobs that experience mechanical ghosting.

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Tips on Effective Design and Type Setting

Creating Your Identity, With a Logo
Creating a business identity often starts with logo design. A logo may be a symbol or graphic that presents and image without words or it may be the name of a company presented in a special type font or presented in a distinctive manner. Often it is a combination of a graphic image and type. Consider how you wish to be thought of by your customers and prospects. What words and images come to mind when you consider your business objectives and how you want to differentiate yourself from your competitors?

Designing Powerful Printed Documents
Ask yourself the following questions as you prepare documents to promote your business to customers or communicate important information to others.

What is the Objective?
What do you want to communicate? What does the tone and look need to be? Do you want to project bold and powerful or subtle and understated?

Who is the Audience?
Will the piece go primarily to people who know about your business? Will it introduce your company to prospects? Are you trying to reach target groups? Knowing just who will be reading the material will help you create and communicate the message, look and tone you desire.

Who Will Be the Designer?
You may be doing your own graphic design using desktop publishing technologies. If you’re not experienced in graphic design, here are some common sense tips.

Planning Your Finished Size and Shape
The standard flat sizes are 5 ½” x 8 ½”, 8 ½” x 11” and 11” x 17”. These sizes can be folded in various ways to optimize their use.

Selecting Margins
Use the same margins on all pages for a neat, clean and consistent appearance. Find a style that works for you and stay with it.

Selection of Type Styles and Sizes
Imaginative use of type can enhance every printed piece. Styles, sizes and weights chosen should be based on the objective of the document and the look and tone you want to convey. Boldface type is often used for headlines to attract the reader’s eye. Type for the body (sometimes called text) is usually a lighter and smaller face. The text should be set at least 10 point type for legibility. Do not use more than three styles of type on a page.

Graphics and Copy Placement
Photographs, illustrations, graphs, etc., attract attention and help convey messages that would require the proverbial “thousand words.” However, don’t make a page busy with too many graphics. Generous use of “white space” makes a page more appealing and readable. Copy and graphics should be considered in groups. Lay them out in an orderly way on the page. Don’t run the type across the width of the page. It’s best to break the page into smaller columns of type and intersperse photos and illustrations. When laying out facing pages, think of them as a single unit. Don’t run text across one page to another facing page, but consider spreading the heading and art across both pages to create continuity.

Photographs and Other Images
Printed photographs and other images such as logos are composed of small dots. As a result, continuous tone photos are converted to a screened photo (halftone) so it can be reproduced. Dot pattern density or screen can change throughout a photo. The pixels or dots per inch (DPI) are determined at the time an image is scanned or when a photograph is taken with a digital camera. Subsequent enlarging or shrinking of the image will have a corresponding impact on dots per inch. Web sites frequently have very low-resolution images of 75 to 80 DPI to allow for faster page loading. For high quality publications reproduced via offset printing, images must be at least 266 to 300 DPI.

Art and Borders
Clip art is a quick way to create visual appeal with your publication. Border treatment can carry a color theme through a booklet and provide continuity on the various panels of a brochure. A border of single or multiple lines with photographs keeps them from dangling in space and creates a professional feel.

The Use of Color
Studies have shown over a 60% increase in retention of information when full color is used instead of black and white. Periodical studies reveal full color increases readership over 40%. As a result, color is a prime consideration in reaching your reader and being sure your message is retained. Color can stir various emotional responses. Red conveys strength and power. Blue projects stability and sophistication. Green has a calming impact. Bringing color to your publications can make them more attractive and effective. In fact, almost any printed piece will have greater impact with color.

Screens as a Means to Increasing Color Impact
A screen of black will appear as gray and a screen of red appears pink. Screens are created by converting a solid to a dot pattern allowing you to create additional colors without more cost. A screened color or image (sometimes referred to as ghosting) can be the background for heavier type or graphics.

Proofing
Like, test, test, test… in direct marketing, repeated proofreading is essential to publishing success. Proofread everything and then do it again. Misspelled words, grammatical and punctuation errors can result in your whole publication losing its effectiveness.

Print Quantities
Printing economics favor longer runs and larger quantities. However, if changes are frequent it can be inappropriate to print a large quantity. With frequently updated publications prevent waste by ordering relatively small quantities. For publications used in large quantities and infrequently updated, it’s more cost-efficient to order a large quantity at one time.

Choosing the Right Paper
Think about the following for your publication: Do you want an upscale or an inexpensive feel? Is weight (postage expense) a consideration? Should it resist fingerprints and stains? Will it have a long life or limited use? Paper that works just fine for text and line art will not work as well with photographs. The highest reproduction quality and ink holdout is on smooth, gloss (coated) white stock with a high degree of brightness and opacity. Matte (flat) stock is best for type readability.

Bindery or Finishing
Finishing operations can have as much impact as great design, vibrant colors, catchy graphics and quality printing. All of us are familiar with simple stapling of pages along the inside fold to form a booklet. Perfect binding is when the pages are glued to the inside cover of a document, such as a paperback book. Folding is an inexpensive means to greater more flexible, appealing and effective publications.

1. Half Fold- Single fold providing 4 pages.
2. Tri Fold- Left and right flaps open to reveal a message inside.
3. Z Fold- The piece opens up like an accordion.


We Want to Help You Make Your First Impression, Your Best Impression!

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Software and Media We Support

We process print ready electronic files from the native files produced by virtually all of the well known desktop publishing software as well as PostScript or PDF files created from such software. The most common software packages we support are listed below. If you’re not sure your software is supported, please call us or e-mail us to check. The version supported indicates the newest revision level of the software we support. In general, files produced by older versions of the software will open with the updated versions.

Page Composition & Layout Software
• Adobe PageMaker (PC and Mac Supported | Version 7)
• Adobe InDesign (Mac Supported | Version 2)
• Quark Xpress (PC and Mac Supported | Version 5)
• CorelDRAW (PC Supported | Version 10)
• Microsoft Publisher (PC Supported | Version 2002))

Design & Image/Color Enhancement Software
• Adobe Illustrator (PC and Mac Supported | PC Version 10 :: Mac Version 9)
• Adobe Photoshop (PC and Mac Supported | Version 7)

Office Suite Software
• Microsoft Excel (PC Supported | Version 2002)
• Microsoft Word (PC and Mac Supported | PC Version 2002 :: Mac Version 98)

Media
• 3.5” Floppy (PC and Mac Supported)
• CD / CDR (PC and Mac Supported)
• DVD (PC and Mac Supported)
• Optical disk 2GB (PC and Mac Supported)
• Zip disk 100MB (PC and Mac Supported)

File Types
• PDF (PC and Mac Supported)
• PostScript (PC and Mac Supported)

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Preparing and Sending Print Ready Desktop Publishing Files

Sending us a print ready electronic file helps to make your print job delivery faster and more accurate. Following are three different setup options for your electronic files in preference or priority order. Your original application is the easiest to deal with provided it is created in one of the applications we support, followed by Postscript and then PDF files.

1. Application Files

2. Postscript Files

3. PDF File

4. How do I save my publication to disk as a PostScript file?
You’ll need to download an Adobe PostScript Printer Driver for your Windows or Macintosh computer system from our website (see question number 5 below). The PostScript driver only needs to be downloaded and installed once – the first time you prepare files. If you’re printing a publication that has both full color and black & white pages (for instance a sell sheet with a full color front side and B&W back side), you’ll need to print the full color side in one PostScript file and the B&W side in a separate PostScript file.

5. How do I download and install the Adobe Postscript Driver?
To download the PostScript Driver click on the appropriate link:
Adobe PostScript Printer Driver for Macintosh(2.37 MB)
Adobe PostScript Printer Driver for Windows(7.74 MB)

6. How do I print my publication to disk as a Postscript file using a desktop publishing program?
For instructions on using Macintosh or Windows in all of the different formats click on the platform below:
Windows
Macintosh

7. How do I send my PostScript or PDF file to Speedcolor?
Files can be sent to Speedcolor by e-mail, website based upload, FTP, or conventional mail. File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is the optimal choice to transfer large files quickly and effectively. E-mail and File Upload are great choices to transfer small to medium sized files. Sending files on CDR or Zip disks will take longer to produce the publication, due to the speed of mail. Remember to include your order number with your file when sending via e-mail or conventional mail. Your order number will insure that your file will be quickly reviewed.

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