If a printer has ever asked you to "add bleed" and you nodded while quietly wondering what they meant, this one's for you.
Bleed is artwork that extends beyond the finished edge of your printed product. When your design has a coloured background or an image that runs to the edge, that colour or image needs to keep going for an extra 3mm past where the product will be cut.
Commercial printing isn't printed one sheet at a time. Your job is printed on large sheets, often with many copies side by side, then trimmed down to size on a guillotine cutting through a thick stack of stock. That process is accurate to within a millimetre or so, but paper is a natural material - it shifts, expands and compresses slightly.
If your background stops exactly at the trim line and the cut lands half a millimetre outside it, you get a thin white sliver along the edge. Bleed gives the blade somewhere to land so that tiny movement is invisible. The cut always lands on your artwork, never past it.
The same movement that causes white slivers can also clip things sitting too close to the edge. So while backgrounds must extend past the trim line, your important content should stay well inside it. Keep text, logos and anything you can't afford to lose at least 3mm inside the trim edge.
Send it through anyway. Our preflight checks catch missing bleed and we'll let you know before anything is printed. Sometimes we can extend the artwork for you; sometimes the design needs a small adjustment. Either way, you approve a proof before production starts.
Full specs are on our Artwork Setup Guide. Ready to print? Grab an instant price on business cards, flyers and more.