What is bleed, crop marks and the safe area?

Okay lets tackle each of these one at a time….

BLEED: This is the area of your design that will be trimmed off when the card is cut to the final size. We use bleed to prevent any unwanted white borders from showing at the edge of your design once cut to the finished size.

Any elements of your design, like images or photos and graphics (like the leaves and flowers in the example above) will need to have bleed too. We require a minimum 3mm bleed on all edges. Make sure when you export or save your file to PDF the bleed is included....

If your design has nothing bleeding off the edge, then you can supply it without bleed, as it isn’t required.

CROP MARKS: Are the lines in the corners of your design to show us where we will need to trim your artwork once printed. If your artwork has bleed it is recommend you supply your PDF with crop marks.

These can be added to your artwork when exporting or saving your file to a PDF.
  

SAFE AREA: All important text and graphics must be in at least 5mm from the edge. This is to allow for movement when printing, and running the risk of being cut off when trimmed. This is called a ‘safe area’.

Artwork Guidelines