Understanding Bleed

When you receive your beautiful flyer or business card from your printer, you say "Wow, that's nice". However, these are never printed on that size of paper that you received. Your flyer or business card will have been duplicated multiple times on the printer's larger sheet of paper or card.

After printing, the sheets are stacked up and cut down to your required size by large guillotines.

Through all these movements and stacking, it becomes impossible for the to remain absolutely aligned and you end up with unsightly traces of white appearing randomly on some edges. Bleed compensates for this.

Example layout for business cards

The red portions above will be trimmed off.

Above example is my own business card for my other business. The blue frame is not part of the design. It is only to show where the edges are to be trimmed off.

Below is the finished card

I hope the above is clear enough for you as the topic of bleed and the printer's need of trim marks seem to cause considerable difficulty for many. If you need more information, please do not hesitate to write to me or contact me on +61 414 688 198 .

---