Web vs. Print Design

[Roenick]

i've been asked to design a flyer that will be handed out at a conference. my design background has been all web-related so i'm curious if there are people here that have had experience with this and can shed some light on things to consider when designing for print.

what steps would you take to design a flyer?

for example, i've read that print graphics should be a minimum of 300 dpi and they should be specified in CMYK or PMS as opposed to RGB.

would you design something in photoshop or illustrator and then take it to kinkos?

other thoughts or suggestions?

 

[Prosperous]

i've read that print graphics should be a minimum of 300 dpi and they should be specified in CMYK or PMS as opposed to RGB.

Correct. Before turning to Domains, I used to do illustrations for magazines for years, and 300 dpi is the minimum. I used to do my work in CMYK (as opposed to converting it from RGB to CMYK once I was done) because colors may turn out very different in CMYK.

If I were you I would design the flyer in a true (vector-based) DTP program (Adobe PageMaker or Quark Express, for example), not in an (even though vector-based) illustrating prog. such as Illustrator, and not in (pixel-based) Photoshop either.

Make sure to deliver your design-files with the fonts included. Most of the (professional) print-graphics world is MAC based, so if you work on a Windows/Linus based platform, then make sure that the files you deliver to your service-bureau/print-shop/copy-shop/whatever can actually be 'read' by their platform. And, if you'd burn them on a CDr then that's best done in cross platform CD-ROM format 'ISO-9960'.

Anyway, too much to go into here... I think it'd be best if you ask more questions on forums/newsgroups where people specifically deal with graphic design.

Best of luck!
Rob


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[Anthony]

Wow, Rob, that's some good advice there! My way to deal with print was trial and error... I could have used your advice back then -- with lost/missing fonts, incompatible CDRs, etc.!!!

 

[nicholas]

The biggest advice I would add: Increase the resolution. Color brochures should go for at least 150 LPI (that's LPI (lines per inch), not DPI); and ideally 200 LPI.

Print is its own medium, so I would also suggest that to "professionalize" it, design around it as its own medium instead of a sloppy "screenshot" type of thing. But remember also to keep it consistent with your other designs (including the web version).

If you have photographs included, your biggest beef would usually go into the photos, where, what looks really nice in a computer monitor (especially in JPG) can be absolutely terrible when converted to print in its compressed format. Merely increasing the resolution won't help if the file is already in compressed (JPG, etc.) format; ideally if you have it, you use the original photos.

That said, the above is advice for raster, or "bitmapped" graphics. If you use bezier/cureves-based programs like CorelDraw or Adobe Illustrator, then it would be much easier because these can be resized in any way you want without any significant changes in file size.