Design Practice: What is Design for Print? (Print Manual Plan)

BRIEF

Produce a ‘Top Ten’ manual of things to know, consider or remember in order to produce successful Design for Print. You should use the seminars and tasks from the module as a starting point for your own individual/independent investigation of the methods, processes and formats that can be used to create innovative but practical solutions to print based design briefs and all aspects of print- based delivery.

Your considered opinion is important. You should use appropriate examples of professional creative practice in order to demonstrate your breadth and depth of understanding. 'Chapters’ might include, colour conventions, inks, stock, format and others.

You will need to evidence research into:

Production Methods
Stock considerations
Colour systems
Commercial costings

Starting Out

From the print seminars with Lorenzo and the computer software workshops with Mike, I have learnt a great deal about design for print. I have also been reading print production books to help me. [Print Production Notes] All I have learnt is documented on my design practice blog, which will make it easier to pull together my 'top ten'.

Here are some images from the books I have read that will help to inspire designs as well as the fact that I will need to include similar images in my manual to help explain what I'm trying to say.

I will create the .pdf, which is to be uploaded to issuu on indesign. I think the design will reflect the work I have been looking at, as well as having a typical print theme, with the use of cmyk colours, tints etc, as well as containing relevant work to support my top ten.

Here is an idea of what my top ten will be, including the things that need to be included. I think I will also include a cover, contents page and a glossary to keep the book as easy to use as possible. I'm sure it will end up being something that I can continually look back over. I have tried to arrange them in a logical order.

Cover - What is Design for Print - A Top Ten Manual

Introduction - This is a basic handbook to give you an idea of how design production for print works, as the printing process is a very important part of a graphic designer's work.

Contents

Dealing with clients - (check colour is exact, get them to check before printing, keep them informed with costing early on)

Production Methods - Types of printing and what they are for (offset litho etc)

Colour Systems - CMYK + RGB - (differences between two, how to convert, what they are for, plus information on monochrome and tints)

Colour Systems - Pantone - (explaining spot colours, colours that are outside of the printing gamut)

Formats - Paper sizes - (what is economical, list of different standard paper sizes)

Using Software - (how to make sure your design is printable in photoshop, illustrator and indesign)

Stock Considerations - (photograph examples of different stocks, explaining gsm, uncoated/coated etc)

Commercial Costings - (advice on costing)

Finishing Processes - (foil blocking, embossing, debossing, binding, duplexing etc)

Proofing - (how to check that the design is ready to print, spellchecked, all files correctly places, all fonts included)

Glossary

Back Cover

As most of the information will be copied from what I have already found out, I'll go straight into designing. I really like the design for the production manual by Gavin Ambrose and Paul Harris, but I don't want to just copy an existing design. This publication is for screen and not for print, but if it was a real project, I would want to actual include examples of different stocks and finishes. I know this would be expensive to make but I think would make a really exciting, good looking book.

In my indesign software workshop, I enjoyed finding the tints of colours, so I think this is something I will bring in to the design. As the brief says, the content should be ordered and informative, so I will want to keep everything fairly simple, as this is the most effective way to design.

An initial idea: