How can I avoid common printing issues in my design?

We use the most up-to-date printing technologies available, but there are still some potential issues that may arise during the production process. Our prepress team is here to help you out. They will review your file after you submit it and notify you about any issues that may occur. Here is a list of potential issues to be aware of and our recommendations on how to avoid them:

Black Colors

In most cases, 100K black (C0, M0, Y0, K100) is the best option for black designs. 100K black should be used for text, gray tints, knockout designs with black backgrounds, and gradients involving black. 100K black is preferred for digital prints.

We offer a 100K black ink made from algae ink. This eco-friendly black ink is perfect for any of the sustainable products from Greenerprinter. It works particularly well for algae ink business cards, kraft hang tags, compostable packaging sleeves, and eco-friendly stickers.

Rich black (C60, M40, Y40, K100) can be used in offset printing for large areas of deep black color.

Avoid using RGB black, registration black, or other black colors, as they are prone to unwanted color shifts and can appear more brown or gray than intended.

For more information, please review: What type of black color should I use in my print design?

Blue and Purple Colors

Blues and purples can create a sense of calm and creativity on printed products like pull out boxes, food packaging sleeves, and clothing price tags. However, CMYK printing can have issues with dark blue and navy colors. Sometimes these shades will shift to appear purple on a final printed product.

We rarely see issues with these colors with our presses, but it is a possibility, depending on which of our presses is used to produce your product. All of our machines are calibrated before each job to reduce the chances of issues like this occurring. If any color values seem like they will be a problem, our prepress team will contact you about the issue so that it gets solved before full production happens.

For more information, please review: Will blue and purple colors print as intended?

Borders

Our printing and trimming services are very precise and can accommodate designs with borders. Because of unavoidable shifts that occur during the printing and trimming process, borders can appear uneven, even when trimmed within our small trimming tolerance. Smaller products like business cards and hang tags will show uneven borders more. We recommend using thicker borders of at least 0.25” to reduce the appearance of any unevenness. It is also important that you extend your border out 0.125” from the edge of your product for bleed. This helps reduce the look of uneven borders.

For more information, please review: Bleed & Borders

Folding

Folds can cause the paper coating and ink to crack and flake. We recommend moving large, solid printed areas away from folds and choosing uncoated paper to reduce this issue, especially on folded cards and brochures. Our customer service team is happy to provide recommendations if this is a concern.

Fonts

Occasionally, fonts can become corrupt. This forces all fonts in your design to be turned back into default fonts, even if you’ve saved them in a PDF. You can protect your fonts against this by converting them into shapes (creating outlines), flattening the design, or embedding them in your PDF.

Gradients

Digital printers can sometimes struggle with printing gradients. Sometimes the colors in the gradient will become muddy or the gradient will be printed as solid bands of color instead of a smooth transition. Adding a texture to your gradient can help with the issue.

These problems are dependent on the printer used. Some printers may have issues with a design that others will print perfectly. If we notice any potential problems with your design, we will work with you to find a solution. This is not an issue with non-digital printers.

Gray Colors

Large areas of solid gray can run into issues with banding (unintended lines of a lighter or darker shade). This issue is affected by the paper stock and coating. This issue can occur on any product, including text-heavy booklets and image-heavy direct mailers. To reduce the likelihood of banding, try not to use large solid areas of gray. When using gray, choose a shade made only from black ink. Grays made from a combination of cyan, magenta, and yellow ink can easily lean warm or cold instead of the intended neutral gray.

For more information, please review: Will gray colors print as intended?

Overprint

Design objects set to overprint will be printed as layers on top of each other. The result is similar to designing with a multiply blend mode. The issue is that overprint objects will not show accurately in your design unless you turn on overprint preview. The final design will not display accurately in PDFs, which can lead to confusion during proofing and production.

We recommend double checking that no objects are set to overprint unless intended. Additionally, please turn on overprint preview when designing and exporting your files to get a more accurate sense of how they will appear when printed.

Reversed Type

Reversed type is the name for light colored text on a dark background. Reversed type can be an amazing design choice, especially on booklets, programs, brochures, and pamphlets. However, it can cause issues with printing, so special precautions should be taken. On reversed type, the dark ink of the background tends to spread a little bit into the light ink of the text. This makes the letters appear smaller than intended, especially if your chosen font has fine serifs. If you choose to design with knockout text, we recommend choosing a large, bold font with large (or no) serifs. Only use reversed type for headlines, not body text.

For more information, please review: What is reversed type?

Safety Margins

A safety margin is a small area around the edge of your design that should not include any important information or text. This safe area acts as a buffer between important info and the trimming line and protects your important information from being cut off during any shifts that occur in the trimming process. Typically, safety margins should be at least 0.125”, but more is often required on larger products like posters and signage, and complicated shapes like boxes. A safety margin is used in addition to bleed. Please do not put any text in the safety margin.

For more information, please review: What is a safety margin?

Transparency

Using excessive transparency in your design can cause problems with our image processing software. You can avoid this issue by choosing opaque colors instead of transparencies.