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Adult Advertising Tip of the Day – Live Area, margins and bleeds, oh my!

During the printing of your piece, the paper can shift and your art will land in a slightly different place in relation to where it will be trimmed. To avoid this from being noticed on the final piece, always be sure to leave the room for this shifting in your layout.

Trim - The size that your work will be cut to.

Margin - The area around the outer edge of the piece to allow for printer shifting.

Live area - The area in the center, minus the margins where important info should remain, not going into the margin.

Bleed - The amount of artwork that needs to "bleed" off the edge, over the trim to account for printer shifting. Usually .125" - .375", depending on pub.

When you have specs for any print piece, you should always have the above 3 sets of measurements, 4 if you have a bleed. MANY pubs do not supply live area. I usually have to call them and ask what they want it at. Sometimes they don't care, sometimes they don't know what I'm talking about. Amazing. When in doubt, I like to give it a nice 3/8" (.375") margin on a print ad that is around 8.5" x 11". If it is for an oversized pub, like XBIZ, I'll go up to 1/2" (.5").

A good printer can get up to 1/16 of an inch from the trim for things like business cards, maximizing your live area. For magazines, there must be a much wider margin - .25" - .75" from the trim - depending on the publication. Some publications will have different margins for the top and bottom (.75") and left and right (.5").

So, here is the formula: If you have an ad for a pub that is 8.5" x 11" at the trim and their margin is .375", all four sides with a .125" bleed, your live area goes down to 7.75" x 10.25".

In this live area is where you want to keep all of your text and important elements. The background (or anything that isn't important and can be cut off) can extend out to the trim, into the bleed if your ad has one.

Leaving a decent sized margin has other benefits. It will keep your text from falling into the gutter. That is the center where the pub is bound together. If possible, try to guarantee left or right placement in the pub. That will allow you to know which side is going into the gutter.

This is especially important when you are doing a spread and your text jumps the gutter. Make sure you leave the margin space. It will look odd when you print it out, but if you put them together and pinch them in the middle to simulate binding, you will see the text come together.

If you do have a bleed on your print piece, make sure to account for it when designing.

I'll get off my soap box now... :P

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Creative Brief: February

Main Article

NEXT: Design Industry News That Matters

Required Reading The last time STEP checked in with our 2006 Emerging Talent alumni Andre Andreev and Dan Covert, the two had launched dress code, their New York-based graphic design partnership, on top of their day jobs at MTV. But as Andreev and Covert left MTV last June to focus exclusively on their fledgling firm, they pondered a puzzling question: Where were all the books to help young designers like them get started in the real world? "Coming out of school, we found there was little material on getting a job and the transition to professional practice," says Andreev. "Yeah, and the stuff that was out there was pretty boring or outdated," says Covert. So they took it upon themselves to make one.

Partnering with the publishing house of yet another STEP Emerging Talent alumnus, Giorgio Baravalle (2007), Andreev and Covert have written and designed Never Sleep: Graduating to Graphic Design. Chronicling their journey to founding their own firm, Andreev and Covert lay the foundation for an inspirational and often quite humorous story of two determined young designers who seem to have discovered a fast track to professional success. The narrative covers the basics-interviewing, interning, building a portfolio and the balance of life versus computer-but they then solicited essays from their mentors, from Michael Vanderbyl to Eric Heiman, to round out a roster of sturdy, time-tested advice. Now that they're experts on the subject, what do they think is the most important thing for design graduates to remember? "Keep knocking and the door will open," answers Andreev, while Covert says, predictably, "Never sleep."

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Design Tip

Tips for Self-Promotion Accentuate the positives: Let your personality and prowess win you projects.

If you are a creative professional about to strike out on your own, in a way you have it made. Strange as it may sound, when starting a business (or a career) the fact that no one has heard of you can work to your advantage. As a relative unknown, you have the luxury of being able to construct an image precisely the way you want it to be built. Firms or individuals who are seeking to “relaunch” themselves may have reputations or perceptions that need to be overcome, but novices do not have this concern. Whether you actually are a newbie, or you’ve simply decided to adopt a higher profile with your marketing, an assessment of current market conditions and some clarity about your own goals will be valuable tools. A good place to begin is by answering some basic questions...

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Design Horiscope: March

Pisces

Symbolized by the Fish, you're a Piscean who's fishing for something extra this month—accolades. You want the limelight and you're tired of sitting in the back row. Take center stage and show off your latest design work. Ignore jealous bystanders and give yourself top billing. Go ahead, talk the talk and walk the walk. But like all good fish, you might have to swim if you end up in hot water.

And don't forget to have fun with your adult advertising ventures. :)

Thanks to our friends at Jupiter Images for sharing this great info – stock photos

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