Why Custom Business Cards Need Full Bleed Printing
Posted: Wednesday, February 10, 2010
by Alan Kappauf
NexCards.com
If you are serious about your business and/or your professional image, you would be well-served to invest in professional-looking, premium business cards. Because your card is often the first piece of marketing collateral your customers & clients receive, it can have a huge impact on that all-important first impression.
Although your card by itself is not the end-all-be-all, it is clearly a large part of the perception puzzle, and the best way to produce highly professional business cards is to utilize a full bleed printing process.
The term bleed refers to any design elements that overlap a document's border, and full bleed printing is the process of printing your artwork on a surface that is slightly larger than the size of the finished product. The excess is then trimmed off, or "cropped," to get the finished product down to its final size.
Although it could vary from printer to printer, the average bleed is about 1/8". In other words, a full bleed business card printer will usually require your design file to measure 3.625" x 2.125." After the printing has finished, the extra 0.125" is trimmed off of each dimension, leaving you with a standard 3.5" x 2" business card.
Note that there is another relatively common term called "partial bleed," which is where only some of the design elements extend off one or more of the edges. Although this process can create relatively unique business cards, it is limited in terms of design flexibility. If you are looking for the highest-quality custom business cards possible, you will want to make sure that your printing company prints "full bleed."
Advantage of Full Bleed
Full bleed printing is something you ought to require from whichever business card printing company you use. Some printing companies may charge for this service, but the more reputable ones do not.
The primary advantage of this type of printing process is that it facilitates seamless, edge-to-edge full color printing. Professional business cards printed via a full bleed process are simply more visually attractive and professional looking than custom business cards printed without full bleed.
Without full bleed printing, any minor paper shift during the production process could result in the color and/or design not extending all the way to one or more of the edges. And this shifting possibility is an industry-accepted standard, so it must be addressed. The cardstock could expand or contract, the machines could "skip," or human error could occur during the set-up process.
If your printer does not print full bleed and simply tries to line up your artwork with each edge, it would be difficult to produce truly premium business cards. This is because any minor shift during printing would result in an off-center design. This in turn could create unwanted borders along one or two of the edges, resulting in an amateurish-looking end result. Full bleed printing is sometimes referred to as "borderless" printing for this exact reason.
Summary
To sum it all up, you would be well-served to get elegant and unique business cards that exude a visually-pleasing, highly professional look and feel. This, in turn, will help your efforts to generate positive first impressions. In this capacity, full bleed printing is a requirement, as it enables edge-to-edge distribution of the ink to generate attractive, full color custom business cards with no amateurish-looking borders. First impressions are simply too important to skimp on this critical component.
About NexCards.com
NexCards.com provides unique, fully customized business card products, including silk business cards , glossy ultra-violet, spot UV business cards, metal, plastic, rounded corner, panoramic, custom cut, and much, much more. Our high quality business cards can be easily designed online, or you can upload your own design file the choice is yours. Competitive pricing, superior customer service, and a comprehensive satisfaction guarantee that is unmatched in the industry have helped make NexCards.com one of Internet's leading providers of ultra-premium business cards.
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