Print Design Errors One Should Completely Avoid

Everyone makes mistakes. It is part of being human. Errors are there to teach a lesson, but there are cases when an error can be avoided. When it comes to print design, keeping away from making any mistakes is a must. Otherwise, one might end up spending cash for something definitely not worth it. To avoid unnecessary spending and money going down the drain, one should take note of the possible erroneous decisions when designing something to be printed out. After all, what looks great on the monitor screen does not always look as great when on paper.

When designing and thinking about getting the design printed later on, one should recognize the fact that printers interpret the data sent to them from the computer. One should go away from the RGB color mode and opt for the CMYK mode instead. CMYK is based on the mixture of four colors namely, cyan, magenta, yellow and key. The last refers to black. Mixing them is theoretically able to reproduce any other colors. RGB, on the other hand, is based on the production of colors by modeling light. It utilizes the colors blue, green and red. RGB is more Spanish than CMYK while the printer is English. Hence, printers are able to understand CMYK way better than the other alternative.

Another error committed by print designers is the failure to use the right kind of instructions to achieve pure black. This is still in relation to the CMYK data and the designer's complete understanding of it. To achieve a rich black color, every one of the four colors should still be represented but in far lesser amounts compared to the key, which is black. Some people mistake the presence of a little amount of black coupled with lesser amount of the other hues to be successful in achieving the black color. Unfortunately, this is erroneous. CMY should be in 70,50,30 ratio to achieve the designer black hue while 60,40,40 for cool black and 40,60,40 for warm black. K at all points should be at 100.

Probably the worst one among the various errors in print design is utilizing the wrong resolution. A low resolution design ends up with pixelations, which are highly visible both in print and on screen. No matter how beautiful an image is or how nicely-done the design is, it can easily be ruined with an error on the resolution. For one to correctly determine the perfect resolution for a design, one should be aware of where the design is going to end up in. Except cases involving really huge designs, the best numbers for print design is 300 dpi. This involves anything printed that can fit in a regular guy's hands.

These are three of the biggest errors in print design. Learning about them and making an effort to avoid them should be a huge concern for any designer out there. The losses in revenue that may result from these mistakes cannot be easily made up for. A designer can lose his job though if unaware of something as basic as these.