Not a day goes by where I don't have to explain this concept. I mean it. Every. Single. Day.
To be fair, it's not a term that's really used out in there the "real world." It's an art and creation specific concept, so the average person doesn't need to know. But, with more and more people attempting to be their own graphic and print designer (in an attempt to cut costs even though it usually ends up being a complete nightmare) it's something I thought I would tackle here on the blog.
This way you guys can learn a little something, and I'll have a place to copy and paste responses instead of ripping my hair out.
So, what is a BLEED?
A "BLEED" is simply a term that means that your design's colors/images go all the way to the edge of your paper.
Commercial printers WON'T print all the way to the edge of your paper. It's not cost effective. Instead, they take your design and place it multiple times on larger sheets of paper and cut it out in piles with massive machines to the size you need.
In the case of my business card above, they would cut it out to be 2" tall and 3.5" wide.
The BLEED's job is to give the cutter a little wiggle room to ensure that your images and artwork go all the way to the edge. Which ensures that there are NO gross white edges and NO CUT OFF TEXT!
For the card above the BLEED SIZE is 2.25" tall and 3.75" wide. An extra .125 on each side has been added.Now, this is where people get confused...You don't just make your normal design BIGGER.
That doesn't solve the problem of safe cutting, because your text and important elements are still the same amount of space away from the edge as they were before.
What you need is more SAFE SPACE between the important parts of your design (usually text) and the background color/image/pattern.
Take a look at my little mock-up above. If I just made the card bigger, the text would be close to the edge and it would be in danger of being CUT OFF! (Nooooo)
The top example is ideal, we have safe text AND a bleed. Your design is destined for greatness! No way is that getting messed up on the cutter.
The middle one isn't great, you'll likely get white edges on your printed design, and if the cutter is a millimeter or two off, you'll get cut off text.
The last example is what you might get. Completely cut off information!
Hopefully this basic break down can help you out. My next post will be how to add a bleed in various programs, but for now, this'll have to do.
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