Crossovers require planning.

Crossovers are type, rules, art or photographs which continue from one page of a bound brochure or magazine across the gutter to the opposite page. Ideally, these images will line up precisely and their color will not vary from one side of the crossover to the other, even though the two sides may have been printed on different forms at different times. Thus, crossovers require extra precision in layout, printing and folding. This is why you should make your printer aware of critical crossovers before getting a quote on a project. Both quality and price can be affected. Quality may be affected because it is easier to control crossovers on smaller signatures. For example, if you are printing a 32 page brochure with critical crossovers, your printer should engineer the project to fold as four or eight page signatures rather than as sixteen page signatures. Since this affects the cost of the job, you will want everyone quoting on it to know about those crossovers so that you get true “apples to apples” comparisons on competing quotes.
Need help planning, send me an e-mail or give me a call. 818-335-1930.

Patriotic Print

If you wish to use the U.S. flag in a printed piece, you will certainly want to get the colors right. The GPO (Government Printing Office) says that the official colors are PMS 186 (Red) and PMS 288 (Blue).

Printing Acronyms, what the heck, what do they mean?

Two acronyms used a great deal these days are FTP, which stands for “File Transfer Protocol” and PDF, or “Portable Document Format.” Both describe convenient ways to transfer files, and if you design or buy printing you should be acquainted with the features and benefits of each. For transferring “live” files - that is, actual files intended to be used for a printing project - File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is the better choice. There are two reasons for this. First, FTP allows the accurate transfer of virtually any size file in the program in which it was created. Second, those files can be manipulated by the technicians who receive them, allowing them to set trapping, make last minute alterations, etc. just as if the files had been received on disk. To use FTP, you need to (a) download the appropriate free software and (b) get the address and password of the company to which you are sending files. Both of these are easy, “one time” procedures. For help, call Chromatic at 818-242-5785, or me directly at 818-335-1930 or visit our web site at www.chromaticinc.com. For transferring “view only” files - that is files which need to be seen but not necessarily used for printing, Portable Document Format (PDF) is the better choice. This is because PDF files can easily be sent as simple attachments to normal e-mails. A great drawback of PDF files, however, is that they cannot be altered by the technicians receiving them, and thus are not ideal for use as “live” printing files. On the other hand, PDF’s are perfect for designers who wish to show ink coverage or other specifications of an upcoming project to estimators and sales reps. PDFs are also ideal for use as “soft proofs” a printing company can e-mail to a client to show how alterations look before a formal hard proof is produced. PDF is an Adobe product, and the “Read Only” version - along with extensive information about Portable Document Format - is available free at www.adobe.com.