(techno music)
- Hello and welcome to the first video in this
multimedia design course for print.
Gareth here from TastyTuts.com.
So to begin I'm going to kick this off
and talk about preparation for print design.
Now when preparing for print,
you will want to make sure that all the assets you have
that you want to include in your design are adequate.
We will also want to prepare our project folder
so everything is ready for a efficient
and organized workflow.
Now there are a lot of things we need to keep in mind
and be sure are correct
before we dive into the design process.
In this video I'm going to be touching
on the following topics.
Image quality; image file types; color references;
project preparation; and document specification.
Now if these things are not addressed early on
in the project, they could come back and haunt you later.
Just when you think you have finished your design,
and it's ready for print,
you get the printer calling you up and saying
that various elements of your design are not right.
Images are not high quality enough
or colors are wrong.
If this happens then you will need to go back
over your work and spend more time tweaking it.
A bit of a nightmare.
This has happened to me a few times.
Now some printers are more flexible than others,
but if you're doing a job,
let's be sure it's all correct.
So in this video I want to share with you
my experience and inform you of the things
I prepare for and look for before starting
design for print.
While I discuss these topics,
I'll also be referring to the documents
that we will be producing later on in this course.
So everything is in context for you.
So the first topic I want to discuss
is image quality.
So ultimately any image you use
in your composition for print
is going to be seen on the printed page.
You will need to ensure that once printed,
images look clear and legible,
and maintain the highest standard.
To qualify images for our print design,
we need to keep in mind three things.
Image size, or as I like to call it,
the physical size.
Image resolution, and aesthetic quality.
Now the image size needs to be sufficient enough
to fit comfortably on the canvas area
without blowing up the image above its threshold.
This would result in image distortion or pixelation.
Resolution needs to be high enough
to ensure quality and legibility.
To ensure the best quality,
the resolution should be at at least 300 DPI.
DPI stands for dots per inch,
and this defines the density of pixels
contained in an image.
Now, aesthetic quality is how it looks.
Is the lighting good?
Is it clear?
Is the sharpness good?
If an image size and resolution is sufficient,
yet the image is all blurry and unclear,
then it would not be good to use.
So let's take a look at an example.
So here we are in Adobe InDesign.
This is the brochure we will be creating
later on in this course.
If we was to take a closer look and follow along with this,
you can download the project folder.
Link is in the description.
So this is a brochure and the document size for this is A5,
which is 148 millimeters by 210 millimeters,
so not a particularly large format here.
Now as we scroll down, we can see that we have
various images included in the composition.
So I'm going to click on one, right click,
and edit with Photoshop.
Upon click, this will open the image
which we can edit in Photoshop.
So in the layers panel we can see a series
of image effects that have been applied.
But we are not going to focus on this right now.
What we are going to focus on here is the image quality.
In fact, I'll toggle off the visual effects
so we can see the original image.
So I'll come up to Image, scroll down, and hit Image Size.
So I'll come down and change the value
on the right to millimeters.
So looking at the image size,
we can see the width is around 200 millimeters
and the height around 134 millimeters.
Now our document is only 148 by 210
so this image is more than large enough
to work in our document.
We can also see that the resolution is set to 300, perfect.
So this image qualifies for both image size and resolution.
We know this will be sufficient enough
for the printed brochure.
But what about the aesthetic quality?
Well if I close the image size window down
and take a look, if I zoom in here at 100%,
we can see that all the details of the image
are nice and sharp and clear.
So a good image to use.
To use any image for our print design,
we must ensure that all three criteria are ticked:
image size, resolution, and aesthetic quality.
So what about image file types?
Well when working in print,
in particular with InDesign, we can pretty much import
any type of image into our document,
such as JPGs, TIFFs, PDFs, EPSs,
Illustrator files, and PSDs.
Though we might want to stay away from GIFs and PNGs
as they are generally used for digital graphics,
which have been highly compressed
and may lack the quality required for print.
As long as your images are of adequate size
and pass the quality criteria,
they should be fine.
So the next topic I want to talk about is color.
Now color usually comes down to cost,
quantity, and the nature of your design.
When it comes to designing for print,
depending on how you plan on printing your document,
you will need to use the appropriate colors.
For example, if you're printing a business card
with a simple design that only consists
of a few colors, chances are it will be more cost effective
to use only Pantone colors.
You will also find your end result
will be more bold and vibrant,
as you'll not be layering colors on top of each other
like you would using CMYK.
If you do use Pantones, then your printer will require you
to determine the correct Pantone colors
in your documents for them to reference.
Now if you're printing a business card
and perhaps on one side of the card
you want to include a photo,
then you would need to use CMYK,
because then you would be using a wide spectrum of colors.
So let's take a look at an example.
So first let's take a look at a business card.
For this design we can see it's fairly simple,
including only four colors.
So on this occasion, it would be wise
to only use Pantone colors.
So if we look over in the swatch panel,
we can see we have the four Pantone colors
that make up this design.
Now these colors were taken from the branding document
which clearly specifies the CMYK and Pantone colors.
When we export and send to print,
the printer should be able to identify the Pantones to use.
Now if we take a look at the brochure, we can see
that this is a more complex document.
There is a lot more going on here,
which also features images,
so the only way we are going to print this
is to use CMYK.
So if I come to an image, right click and edit in Photoshop,
once open in Photoshop if I come up to Image,
click on Color Mode, we can see
that this is currently set to CMYK.
When we prepare images for our print document,
we must always ensure that the images
are set to CMYK.
We will be learning more about this
when we come to create images for the brochure
later in the course.
It's important to mention
that because we are using CMYK for images,
we should also use CMYK colors in the document.
If we look over in the swatch panel,
we can see the swatches.
And if I double click, we can see the CMYK color values.
These references, like with the business card,
were taken from the branding document.
Now if the images are not set to CMYK,
and we make the mistake of using RGB colors
in the document, then you may get a call back
from the printer asking you to change
them and resubmit your document for print.
And you do not want that.
So when applying color for print,
we must use the correct colors
for the right print setup, either CMYK or Pantone.
And make sure any images are set to CMYK.
So the next topic I want to talk about
is project preparation.
Now before I start any design project for print,
I always prepare a project folder.
Print documents can contain anything
from a single image to hundreds of images,
so I find it important to organize my files
so everything is ready for an effective
and organized workflow.
So in my project folder, I usually have these five
main folders: research, design, work docs,
assets, and PDF exports.
In the research folder is, of course,
any research or mood boards
I have created in the research process.
In the design folder, I'll keep all the design process
such drawings, mock ups, or color swatches.
In the work documents folder, I will keep my documents
that are prepared for print, such as my InDesign files.
In my assets folder, I'll keep all the assets
that either I have prepared myself
or have been supplied to link into my print documents.
In the assets folder, I have categorized
my assets even further, as not to mix them all up.
Here I keep my PSDs, JPGs, AI: Illustrator files,
PDFs, and TIFFs separately.
Should I use any other file type,
I'll simply create another folder for that.
Lastly, I have the PDF export folder.
This is where the finished documents
will be placed ready for print.
These will be the documents exported
from the print documents.
So preparing an organized project folder
like this will prevent any wasted time,
looking for any assets or files in future.
Now you don't necessarily have to set up
your folder like this.
This is an example of a system
that works really well for me.
The idea here is to be organized.
So the last topic I want to talk about
is document specification.
Now as we create for print, we will be making sure
that all the design elements are perfectly laid out
and everything looks right.
But you must also keep in mind that the document
is set up correctly to be passed on to the printer
for them to print it correctly for you in future.
When it comes to document setup, we must keep in mind
marks and bleeds and correct document size.
So what are marks and bleeds?
Well marks and bleeds are there to aid the printer
to align various pages together
when setting up the document to print,
such as crop marks and fold marks.
Bleed allows for a margin of error.
Around the cut area of your art work,
when a printer trims your document,
in the instance where you have full bleed imagery
in your document, if the trim is not perfect,
you may get a white line around the outside of your page.
Let's take a look at an example.
In InDesign, we can see one of the spreads
for the brochure document.
Now we can clearly see the cut area
around the outside of the canvas area.
Now currently we are looking at this document
in preview mode.
If I now press W, we will enter into normal mode.
And here we can see all the guides
that help us create the composition.
Now if we look around the outside,
we can see a red line.
And if I zoom in here, we can see that the base gray
color which is full bleed in the document,
crosses the cut area and ends on the red line, the bleed.
If I press W repeatedly, we can see the cut line
and the bleed line.
So when setting up the document,
if we use full bleed, we must ensure
there is adequate bleed.
Now this is usually specified by the printer.
It's usually between three and five millimeters.
Here we are now looking at the PDF
which was exported from the brochure document.
Here we can see all the necessary marks and guides
which the printer will use to correctly
line up the pages, fold and trim the pages,
and collaborate colors.
We will be learning how to set all this up
later in the course.
Lastly, we should really know the exact size
of the document from the very start.
If you spend a long time designing your document
to a bespoke size, and find out later
you set up the wrong size,
this could cost you a lot of time in future
to put right.
So those are the things you need to keep in mind
as you prepare and develop design for print.
Now when I design for anything,
before I jump onto the computer,
I usually start on paper,
sketching my ideas out
and thinking about how I might want
to layout my design.
These drawings are referred to in the industry as scamps.
Now these are great to keep things fast, creative,
and it's great to communicate and share ideas
with others before spending lots of time
building a design on computer.
In the next video, I'm going to discuss scamps,
what they are
and how important they are to the design process.
See you in the next video.
(upbeat music)