Software for designing Business Cards and other stationery
There are 3 types of software commonly used to produce and manage print-related items.
Page Layout Software - e.g. Quark Xpress, Adobe In-Design.
Vector-Based Illustration Software - e.g. Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand
Pixel-Based Design Software - e.g. Adobe Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro
Owning one program from each category above will provide you with all the neccessary tools at your disposal for easily creating any type of print & design job.
When you've finished designing all the elements of a job, say in Illustrator and Photoshop, then a page layout program is an excellent way to bring all the elements together in one handy place. Adding text is far easier, (quicker), in a page layout program.
A typical scenario would be the creation of a 4 colour process (CMYK) brochure (A3 folded to A4):
Let's assume the client has asked for some colourful graphic effects for the background. We could start by planning the job in Photoshop.
A3 = 420mm x 297mm
If the artwork is going to touch, or go over any of the sides of the brochure, then we need to allow for 'bleeds', which means adding 3mm to each side.
So, our workspace would be set at 300dpi to the following size: 426mm x 303mm
Mode = CMYK
Set some guides 3mm from each edge. The area inside these guides is what we'll see on the finished product. Anything outside these guides will be our bleed area, and this will be trimmed off on the guillotine.
So, even though the printed area is 426mm x 303mm, this will be trimmed down to true A3, i.e. 420mm x 297mm.
OK, so now add your creative effects to the background, as per the brief.
To keep filesizes to a sensible size, ensure all layers are flattened before exporting your document as a .tiff format. (Keep the original unflattened layered file safe).
If the client has supplied a logo in EPS format, then check this out in your vector software to make sure any spot colours are converted to CMYK.
OK, it's now just a case of importing the artwork created earlier (.tiff) into your page layout program.
You can now position any logos that are required. Also, text can now be added to complete the brochure. Editing/formatting text in one of the Vector/Pixel programs is at best fiddly, whereas text control in a page layout program is much easier to achieve. Text will often change quite a bit before the brochure is at sign-off stage, so working in something like Quark or In-Design makes the whole process much easier.
There are a couple of ways of supplying the print files to your printer.
You can either 'collect' all necessary files; graphics, fonts + the page layout file, or you can also supply a print-ready PDF. Both are acceptable however, the PDF is usually preferred.
Reminder! Don't forget to convert any spot colours to CMYK, or these may go missing.
