1. If you don’t know, please ask We have all been art students at one point. It takes time to learn everything, and its okay not to be so sure about printing. All of our employees have gone through training and we are here to help you. If you just ask, we can get it right first and save you some time. 2. Pantone Guides are you friends Please come by our store and pick up a pantone guide. Using a pantone guide for printing is important to getting your colors perfect every time. Colors don’t always look the same from screen to paper. Our pantone guides are printed on our calibrated printers, so you will get your project printed right the first time. 3. Always make sure you are using CMYK for printing RGB is used for web design and computer screens. We can not guarantee your colors will come out looking right if you don’t use CMKY. Adobe Indesign is already set to work in CMYK, however you may have to change the settings in Photoshop and Illustrator. The option to change that is located in the document setup page that opens when you create a new document. 4. Experiment with paper Changing your paper type can really jazz up your project. Using stark white paper for everything can be boring. We carry a large variety of 8.5 x 11 types of paper, go ahead and try them out. We can print on any paper that is approved for laser printing, so also feel free to bring in your own and experiment. 5. Please, please, please package your files When working in Indesign there is a nifty little tool called package which will group all of the elements of your project together into a neat little folder. It will include your Indesign file, the fonts you used, and any images you placed into the document. This option is located at File – Package. Follow the instructions and your document will be ready to go. Packaging and bringing that folder with you will ensure a faster printing experience. 6. How to save your photoshop files Because Photoshop files are raster, rather than vector files, you should save them as a .Tif. Photoshop PDF files have a tendency to get corrupted and we have a lot of problems taking them to print. Tiff files are efficient and will have no problem printing. 7. Designing for Saddle Stitching When you design for a saddle stitch booklet, you need to design in multiples of four. If you don’t there will be blank pages in your document, and you probably don’t want that. 8. Double Sided printing Make sure there are an even number of pages for your double sided document. This will ensure that there will be information on every page, and no side will be left blank. Also, don’t forget your bleed! An 1/8 of an inch should suffice for any double sided project. It is also best to design in Indesign for double sided printing to ensure that everything will line up correctly. 9. Need advice Feel free to come in and ask our opinion on your project. We know how rough critiques can be and its always great to have an outside opinion. We love to see new designers and fresh ideas, and don’t worry, all advice comes free of charge. 10. Quality is Key If you get your images off of the web, beware. They will only be at a 72dpi. This size is not suitable for printing. Your images will come out pixilated, especially when you try and print them at a larger size. Your images have to start out at 150dpi minimum to print at a good quality. You can not take a 72dpi image and change the size to a higher resolution, it will just stretch the pixels making the image look even worse.