WORLDS FASTEST PRINT LAYOUT LESSON

This is everything you need to know to get started laying stuff out for PRINT

BLUE LINE: This is your SAFETY LINE within the printed page. It is an asthethic, not a technical call. It just represents the area that is 'safe' to layout your design in. It can be anywhere within the bounderies of the page.

BLACK LINE: This is your TRIM LINE and represents where the finished page will be cut. Anything that is placed outside this line will not finish up in the trimmed print. Think of it as the edge of the page in a book. By cutting stacks of different pages and binding them, one ends up with a book.

RED LINE: This is your BLEED LINE. It is the most important FOR ILLUSTRATORS. This is where you lay out your artwork to if it includes images that run up to the edge of the page. Its here so you can have images all the way past the trimmed edge of the page (see above). I'll talk more about this later, but for now thats all you need to know.

GREEN LINE: This is just the SLUG LINE, the extra area on the layout to give you room for markings and direction. Registration and crop marks go here. Anything that needs to be printed on a sheet that is not considered part of the 'to be printed design' goes out beyond the bleed line in the slug. Easy right. Like the safety line its anyones call to make. Some people like a large slug, some like it small. As long (and it has to be) as the slug is larger than the layout itself then you're good.

And theres the lesson. Thats all there is. If you know these four facts you can at least competently lay out a simple design that any professional printer or print designer will at least be able to understand.