Understanding Design Guidelines for Print
Design guidelines are a set of technical and visual standards used to prepare artwork correctly for professional printing. They help ensure that the final printed product appears sharp, accurately colored, properly aligned, and free from production errors.
When a design is created for print, what appears on a screen does not always translate perfectly onto paper or other physical materials. Printing equipment, paper types, ink behavior, trimming processes, and color reproduction all affect the final result. Design guidelines provide clear instructions that reduce these risks and improve consistency.
One of the most important aspects of print preparation is using the correct color mode. Digital screens display colors in RGB (Red, Green, Blue), while printers use CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black). Converting artwork to CMYK before printing helps avoid unexpected color shifts.
Another key requirement is image resolution. High-quality printing requires images at 300 DPI (dots per inch). Low-resolution images taken from websites or screenshots often become blurry or pixelated when enlarged for print.
Print guidelines also include instructions for bleed and safe areas. Bleed is the extra image or background area that extends beyond the final trim size. This prevents unwanted white edges after cutting. Safe areas keep important text and logos away from the edges so they are not accidentally trimmed.
Typography preparation is equally important. Fonts should either be embedded in the file or converted to outlines to ensure the printer sees the text exactly as intended. Missing fonts can alter the design layout and create printing errors.
Export settings are another essential part of print design guidelines. Print-ready PDFs are typically preferred because they preserve layout, fonts, image quality, and color information. Standards such as PDF/X formats are commonly used for reliable professional output.
Overall, design guidelines act as a bridge between the designer’s digital artwork and the final physical product. Following these standards helps achieve accurate colors, clean finishing, sharp graphics, and a professional-quality printed result.
You can download our guides and templates in the template section. Remember to delete the template layers before exporting your design to PDF.
If you already have a design, no worries; we accept other file formats, including JPEG, PNG, or EPS.
For photographic content, high-resolution JPEGs are recommended, preferably without compression. For graphics or text-based content, we recommend print-ready, vector-based PDFs. For content that is a combination of graphics and photography, we suggest using print-ready PDFs to ensure the best quality.
If you want your product to be cut to a custom shape, you will have to add it as a vector shape on top of your design. Make sure the width of the stroke is 1 pt, the colour is a 100% magenta spot and named “cutcontour”. You only need to add one contour line. If you want us to adjust it for you, please send the custom shape on a separate page in the desired position.
Please note that bleed is still needed for custom shaped designs, meaning your design must go at least 5 mm past the contour cut line.
Prepare your files using CMYK as the colour mode, not RGB. Use colourmode FOGRA39 (ISO Coated v2). If you are unsure of the colour mode of your file, don’t worry we can always convert this for you. Keep in mind this can cause the colours to differ from the original file.
Make sure the resolution of the images and graphics in your artwork are at least 150 dpi.
During production, there might be a slight cut deviation. To avoid any issues, we recommend the following:
- Add a 5 mm bleed around all edges of your design.
- Keep important elements 10 mm away from the edge or folding lines.
- Avoid using borders or frames on smaller formats like labels.
For this product, the minimum font size is 12 pt. To avoid any issues, we recommend the following:
- Fonts must be embedded or outlined.
- If your design contains small black text, make sure it is 100 % black (Cyan: 0 Magenta: 0 Yellow: 0 Black: 100).
- Note that we don’t check spelling or typographical errors.
The lines should be at least 3 pt.
Make sure no elements in your artwork are set on overprint unless you want this effect in your design. You can read more about overprint in our Help Centre.