Don’t drain my printer!

IFO, Lead Magnet, Free E-book, Free Report, Free Guide. You know, the thing that we put on our websites for free download in exchange for an e-mail address? We make them ourselves (in Canva, Powerpoint, or Word,) or we have a graphic designer make them for us in Indesign and provide them as PDFs.

These days we are creating so much visual content for screens that we hardly think about the limitations that exist for printed items. One thing is the requirements for professional printing, which you will run into when uploading something to Vista Print or your local print shop; –images that aren’t sufficiently high res or "bleed" lacking. We will discuss these pitfalls in due course, I promise. Just now though, I am actually thinking of the printing that people do at home. When you are creating something that you expect or hope that people will print, think about these few things:

1. The printed area. No desktop printer will print all the way to the paper’s edge, but leave a white “frame” of 0.5 inches or something like that. Don’t put content in this frame.

2. Colored blocks. Yes, we love big areas with solid colors or images that cover the entire background of something. We can do that on the web, in social media posts, or even in Powerpoint slides, without anybody drowning. If you add too much solid color to an item that is to be “home-printed” however, the paper will emerge from the printer as wet as a washrag, and your reader's toner cartridges will empty very fast.

3. Mind the paper quality. Ordinary office printer paper at 80 g/m2 or 20 lb. bond, as you call it, is not the most robust paper. As we’ve already stated, it will not hold much moisture but will behave more or less like blotting paper.
Thin, tiny letters & graphic details will leak into the paper structure and look smudged, and WHITE thin, tiny letters will be swallowed up by the solid background color or –image. (Belch)

4. Don’t rely too much on color for structure or explanations. Many people don’t have color printers.

Sounds dull and restricted? OK. Turn it into a challenge. How creative can you be within strict parameters? I keep returning to this video with the drummer Gavin Harrison, just to hear what he says in the first 50 seconds of it. You may want to do the same. You don’t have to listen to the drumming that follows unless you’re interested. (I do, of course)

Always UNrestrictedly Yours,
Hanne

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