Bleed provides a small amount of extra space around a document to account for slight shifts during the printing and cutting (guillotining) process, ensuring colors and images extend to the very edge of the final printed piece.
Understanding Bleed in Printing
Bleed is an essential concept in printing, particularly when you want colors, images, or design elements to run right to the edge of your printed piece. Without bleed, you risk having thin, unsightly white borders appearing along the edges due to minor inaccuracies during the cutting process. According to our reference, bleed is designed to "give the printer a small amount of space to account for natural movement of the paper during guillotining, and design inconsistencies."
Why is Bleed Necessary?
The primary reason for using bleed is to avoid white edges after trimming. Here's a breakdown of why it's so crucial:
- Guillotining Inaccuracies: Cutting machines (guillotines) are incredibly precise, but slight variations can still occur when cutting stacks of paper.
- Paper Movement: Paper can shift subtly during the printing and cutting stages.
- Design Consistency: It ensures that the printed piece looks professional and polished, with no unwanted borders.
How Bleed Works
When designing with bleed, you extend your artwork or background colors beyond the intended trim line of the document. This extra area acts as a buffer. After printing, the document is cut along the trim line, but because the artwork extends into the bleed area, any slight misalignments during cutting won't result in a white border. The colors or images will still reach the edge. Artwork and background colors often extend into the bleed area to achieve this effect.
Example Scenario: Business Card
Imagine you're designing a business card with a solid red background. Without bleed, if the cutting is even slightly off, a thin white line might appear along one or more edges of the card. By adding bleed, you extend the red background beyond the intended cut lines. Even if the cut is slightly off, the red color will still reach the edge of the card, maintaining a professional appearance.
Setting Up Bleed
- Most professional design software (Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, etc.) has bleed settings that allow you to specify the amount of bleed you want to include. A standard bleed amount is typically 0.125 inches (1/8 inch) or 3mm.
- When creating your design, make sure to extend any elements that you want to reach the edge of the page into the bleed area.
- When exporting your design for printing, ensure that you include bleed settings in the export options.
Common Bleed Mistakes to Avoid
- Forgetting to add bleed: This is the most common mistake, resulting in potential white edges after printing.
- Not extending background elements into the bleed area: If the background or any edge-reaching element doesn't extend fully into the bleed area, you negate the purpose of having bleed.
- Placing important text or graphics too close to the trim line: Keep essential information away from the trim line to prevent it from being accidentally cut off.
