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As a web designer, masters of the digital realm, you might have never faced the situation where your designs are going to be sent to a print shop.
Or perhaps you’re an Internet business owner in a place right now where you need printed materials for an event (a conference, a meet-up, billboard advertising, and so forth). You might be an online retailer, a SaaS company, a web development agency, etc.
What happens when you’ve only got web graphics at hand? Graphics designed to be displayed on electronic devices like computer monitors and smartphones.
When prepping graphics that you intend to have printed, there are several vital factors you must consider.
I’ll discuss the most important factors in this beginner-level guide to preparing your designs for printing.
Web and print don’t reproduce color in the same way. Let’s discuss the differences.
Web graphics operate using the RGB color model where each color is created using a combination of red, green and blue pixels.
The RGB color model is designed specifically for electronic devices such as your computer monitor or your tablet device or your TV.
Print, on the other hand, tends to involve either PMS or CMYK (four-color process).
PMS (Pantone Color Matching System) uses pre-mixed inks with established color values.
PMS is a proprietary color system by the New-Jersey-based corporation, Pantone Inc.
Image source: Parhamr
Using the Pantone system guarantees that you get the exact colors you want because of the standardized inks.
CMYK (also known as four-color process) uses a combination of cyan, magenta, yellow and black inks to reproduce different colors.
Image source: Quark67
The ideal situation would be that a graphics specialist such as a logo designer has professionally designed your graphics assets.
Your logo, for instance, should have been provided to you in two different versions: One specifically designed for Web use, and one specifically for print use. Two different logo designs for two distinctly different display environments.
However if you’re reading this guide, chances are that you don’t have the files you need.
So what do you need to do?
So what do you do when you only have web graphics for printing?
Web graphics are saved to the RGB color model and won’t work properly for your printer. What will happen is the colors might not turn out to be accurate when your printer uses the PMS or CMYK to print your web graphics.
So it’s important to convert and re-save your graphics to either the CMYK color model or PMS for printing. This is a simple process most of the time — you just need your graphics software. But the results aren’t guaranteed to be accurate.
The choice is up to you whether you choose CMYK or PMS, but there’s no print shop that will be able to print files using the RGB color model.
After converting your RGB artwork to a print-ready color system, it’s recommended that you test the output by printing just a small amount of your artwork before going into full production to ensure that the color system conversion was accurate (or accurate enough for your needs).
Here are some guides and resources that will be helpful in color conversion:
A problem that’s likely to come up when dealing with web graphics is their resolution and ability to be resized without loss of quality. This poses an issue when you want your web graphics to be printed on bigger mediums like billboards or magazine covers.
Image resolution refers to the amount of details an image has.
Image resolution for digital images are measured using spatial resolution units, and the poplar unit of measurements are in pixels per inch (ppi) or dots per inch (dpi).
The more pixels or dots there are in a given square inch, the more detail the image has, i.e., the higher its resolution.
Images on the Web are typically compressed to a lower resolution — typically 72dpi — so that they download faster and because most screens don’t need/can’t take advantage of a higher resolution.
Lower-res graphics may look fine on your computer monitor, but that same image will look different when printed.
The biggest issue you might encounter with image resolution is pixelation. Pixelation occurs when you scale an image up and it doesn’t have sufficient enough resolution that it makes the image too blurry.
Look at the difference between a web-resolution image being scaled up in dimension below.
Notice the pixelation occurring as a result of us trying to enlarge the image when it doesn’t have sufficient enough detail.
For this reason, it’s vital to use the highest resolution images possible — at least 300dpi — when creating print-ready graphics.
If you don’t have access to the original file that was used to create your web graphics — which should be in PSD or vector file format (EPS, AI, etc.) — it may be necessary to recreate it.
With a vector file format, you can scale the design up to whatever size you require without any loss of quality.
The Web offers very few restrictions when it comes to color representation.
Print, on the other hand, comes with certain limitations.
When using PMS printing, each new color means an additional cost, making multicolored web graphics less practical with this method.
And, although four-color process can be used to reproduce most multicolored web graphics, one- or two-color PMS printing is often a more cost-effective option.
For this reason (among others), many logo designers will first design a logo using only black and white. If the logo maintains the same visual impact in its simplest, monochromatic form, you’ll have a much easier time when you recreate it using one-color printing.
While the object below is certainly distinctive when it’s multicolored, it’s not terribly interesting to look at in black and white.
Just as PMS printing presents certain design limitations, four-color process also comes with complications to consider — specifically, it can be difficult to accurately reproduce some colors (including orange and navy blue) with the CMYK color model.
If you intend to print your logo using four-color process and it contains any orange or navy blue elements, you may want to replace them with another color — or, alternatively, have those areas spot printed with the proper PMS colors.
Check with your printer if you think your artwork may contain colors that present a problem for CMYK printing.
Popular image formats for web use include JPG and PNG — formats designed for computer monitors but don’t always work as well for printing.
In general, your high-res, print-ready artwork should be in the most "raw" format possible.
The most common formats for this purpose are:
Just because your artwork opens fine on your computer doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for a commercial printer.
When high-quality image files such as PSDs incorporate fonts, you’ll need the proper font files to view them correctly — files that your printer might not have immediate access to, especially if you’re using uncommon fonts.
Be sure to include any necessary font files when sending your artwork to a printer.
On a Mac, these files can be found in System/Library/Fonts.
In Windows, check the Fonts folder inside your main Windows directory.
Most printers will let you include font files in a ZIP along with your artwork files.
Alternatively, you can convert fonts to outlines in Illustrator or InDesign so that you won’t need to include additional files.
The best way to ensure that your logo looks great in print as well as on the Web is to design it with both mediums in mind from the very beginning. However, if you’re stuck in a bind, there are ways to make the best out of the situation.
For more information related to ensuring your graphics is suitable for print, be sure to check out this print-ready checklist that I made.
Vladimir Gendelman is the founder and CEO of Company Folders, Inc. With years of web and print design experience, he leads a team of talented graphic artists and marketing specialists who help businesses put forth the best image possible. You can follow him on Google+ and Twitter.
The post Are Your Web Graphics Print-Ready? appeared first on Six Revisions.
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A couple of weeks ago the famous Foundation framework released its fourth version. If you have never heard of Foundation we’re going to guide you through using this responsive framework.
Since version 3 of Foundation was built from the ground up using SASS — a CSS pre-processor that helps in the writing of more efficient CSS — this new version is also mobile-friendly and provides a lot of features in its grid that you don’t get from other frameworks.
Let’s dive into Foundation and see why it’s so popular…
Foundation uses a 12 column nestable grid that will adapt to any size screen, if you have already used grids this should all be very familiar to you. All the divs in Foundation use box-sizing: border-box so that the borders and padding do not affect the element’s width and height, making the math a little bit easier for us. But the amazing thing about the Foundation grid is that you actually get 2 grids, a big grid for when the screen is bigger than 768px in width and a smaller grid that you can control just as simply. To that end Foundation uses the small-# and large-# classes, like so:
<div class="row"> <div class="small-3 large-4 columns">Lorem Ipsum</div> <div class="small-3 large-4 columns">Lorem Ipsum</div> <div class="small-6 large-4 columns">Lorem Ipsum</div> </div>
In this code we created a row in which there are 3 divs that are the exact same width when the browser is wider than 768px but when it’s smaller, as you can see by that small class in the divs, the last one will occupy half the screen while the other two will occupy 25% each, this gives you immense control of how our website will look on all screens.
Foundation also allows you to offset a column, by which I mean that you can have a row with 2 columns that are only 3 columns wide but you can offset the second one that it floats to the right and to do that we use the large-offset class or the small-offset class:
<div class="row"> <div class="large-3 columns"></div> <div class="large-3 large-offset-6 columns">3, offset 6</div> </div>
The block grid is just a nice little extra, it is a way for you to split the content of a list within the grid, it’s useful for when you wish this particular part of your website to stay evenly spaced no matter what the size of the browser. This type of grid uses the small-block-grid and the large-block-grid classes, if you only set the first one the grid will keep the desired spacing no matter what the viewport is but if you only use the large-block-grid class when the viewport reaches the breakpoint of 768px the grid items will stack on top of each other, you can always take more control by using both of these classes, like so:
<ul class="small-block-grid-2 large-block-grid-4"> <li><img src="image1.png"></li> <li><img src="image2.png"></li> <li><img src="image3.png"></li> <li><img src="image4.png"></li> </ul>
Using this, the images will be evenly spaced no matter the size. When the viewport is bigger than 768px they will only occupy one row, and when it’s smaller than that they will occupy two rows with 2 images each.
Now that we’ve covered the grid in Foundation and how it gives you plenty of control in all environments, we will talk about something we’ll nearly always use on our sites: a top navigation bar. And of course this navigation can also be flexible with little to no work using this framework. To create a simple responsive navigation using Foundation you use:
<nav class="top-bar"> <ul class="title-area"> <li class="name"> <h1><a href="/">Website Title</a></h1> </li> <li class="toggle-topbar menu-icon"><a href="#"><span>Menu</span></a></li> </ul> <ul class="right"> <li><a href="#">Item 1</a></li> <li><a href="#">Item 2</a></li> <li><a href="#">Item 3</a></li> <li><a href="#">Item 4</a></li> </ul> </nav>
This bit of HTML creates a simple navigation bar that has the title of the website on the left and then on the right it has four menu items. Also note that when the viewport is smaller than 768px this menu will be replaced by a list icon making this menu responsive. If you want this grid to have its position fixed as you scroll down the page you just need to wrap it in a div with a class of fixed. To add dropdowns to your navigation you just need to add something like this to the place where you want your dropdown:
<li class="has-dropdown"><a href="#">Dropdown Level 2c</a> <ul class="dropdown"> <li><label>Dropdown Menu</label></li> <li><a href="#">Sub menu Item 1</a></li> <li><a href="#">Sub menu Item 1</a></li> <li><a href="#">Sub menu Item 3</a></li> </ul> </li>
There is also the ability to add a divider to your list item adding a little grey vertical line, to do that you just need to place a list item with the class of divider between the two list items you wish to divide.
No framework would be complete without some predefined buttons and Foundation actually has more than one style of button predefined, it has the default one that uses a blue color and then it adds the success, alert and secondary styles. By adding the class of radius you give this button a little bit of border-radius and by giving it the class of round you make the button almost entirely round. You can also add the class disabled to the button and there are 4 size classes to make the button as big as you need it.
<!-- Size Classes --> <a href="#" class="button">Default Button</a> <a href="#" class="tiny button">Tiny Button</a> <a href="#" class="small button">Small Button</a> <a href="#" class="large button">Large Button</a> <!-- Color Classes --> <a href="#" class="button secondary">Secondary Button</a> <a href="#" class="button success">Success Button</a> <a href="#" class="button alert">Alert Button</a> <!-- Radius Classes --> <a href="#" class="button radius">Radius Button</a> <a href="#" class="button round">Round Button</a> <!-- Disabled Class --> <a href="#" class="button disabled">Disabled Button</a>
To create a simple dropdown button you only need to add the dropdown class after the last class, like so:
<a href="#" class="button dropdown">Dropdown Button</a>
The typography in Foundation uses Helvetica Neue and it also uses em’s instead of pixels to make it easier to adapt your type across all platforms and breakpoints. Using the headers is pretty self explanatory; you just need an h1 and the text you wish inside it, but there are also some other classes that can come in handy when dealing with typography in Foundation.
<!-- subheader --> <h1 class="subheader">h1.subheader</h1> <!-- Segment header, the text inside the small tag will act like a sub header --> <h1>h1. <small>Smaller</small></h1> <!-- Use .circle or .square to change the style of the bullets in unordered lists --> <ul class="disc"> <li>List item</li> </uL> <ul class="square"> <li>List item</li> </uL> <!-- create an inline list--> <ul class="inline-list"> <li><a href="#">Link 1</a></li> <li><a href="#">Link 2</a></li> </ul>
As you can see, when it comes to typography, Foundation provides us with some basic help and then some additional classes to meet all our needs.
If this demonstration of the Foundation framework has whet your appetite to learn more and start building with Foundation you should really take a look at the documentation because Foundation also offers additional CSS components such as:
And also some helper JavaScript such as:
As you can see, there’s a lot of Foundation to explore and I strongly advise you to look at all of its CSS and JavaScript properties.
We covered just enough in this article to see how Foundation can help building faster and more responsive websites, using its grid you get a lot more control over the structure of your website than when using a normal flexible grid and Foundation also gives you plenty of helpers to create your website. I hope this article has given you the push to learn and use Foundation for your next project.
Have you used Foundation for a project? What features did you find the most useful? Let us know in the comments.
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In his junior year at UMBC, Collin Wojciechowski ’13, political science, represented nearly 180,000 students within the University System of Maryland (USM) as their sole student representative on the Board of Regents. Wojciechowski advocated against “doomsday” budget cuts and tuition increases and successfully lobbied to overhaul the USM policy for assessing student fees, making students an active part of the discussion.
Without the aid of scholarships, he would never have been able to serve his fellow students in this way. We sat down with the newly graduated Sondheim Scholar to talk a little bit about the part scholarships have played in his life.
Help UMBC students do AMAZING things. Make a gift to the 30 Days/30 Scholarships campaign today!
Q: How important was it to your college career to have the support of scholarships?
A: Being the son of a firemen and a public school teacher and the oldest of three brothers who all aspire to seek higher education, having the support of a scholarship was extremely important to my college career.
Q: Can you tell us a little about what it meant to you to be able to serve as the student regent, and then to continue working with legislators?
A: If I did not have a scholarship, I would not have been able to be the USM Student Regent; it’s as simple as that. I only had the time and ability to serve at that post because I did not have to work a side job to pay for college.
Being the Student Regent was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. Representing students through such trying times as merger debate and the doomsday budget was the thrill of a lifetime. To then be able to take what I had learned on the Board and use it to represent Dr. Hrabowski in Annapolis was a dream. I have never had more fun then the Session I spent advocating for UMBC before legislators.
Q: Has that work given you added insight into education funding, and if so, can you talk a little about the significance of alumni support of education in Maryland?
A: Having been a member of the Advancement Committee of the USM Board of Regents, which oversees alumni giving, I feel I have a unique perspective on the significance that alumni support plays in higher education in Maryland. While our state, specifically Governor Martin O’Malley, has done tremendous things for public universities in terms of funding, student support and financial aid always need assistance. As students and their families continue to face economic difficulty it is up to the alumni base to ensure UMBC is a place welcoming to everyone.
Read more about Collin and his UMBC experiences on the Class of 2013 site.
Early investors in Bitcoin got rich. Now they are the cryptocurrency’s most powerful gatekeepers.
Every time you spend bitcoins to buy a drink at Evr, a swanky bar in midtown Manhattan that accepts the digital currency, you make its co-owner, Charlie Shrem, just a little bit richer.
]]>Automation is reducing the need for people in many jobs. Are we facing a future of stagnant income and worsening inequality?
Given his calm and reasoned academic demeanor, it is easy to miss just how provocative Erik Brynjolfsson’s contention really is. Brynjolfsson, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and his collaborator and coauthor Andrew McAfee have been arguing for the last year and a half that impressive advances in computer technology—from improved industrial robotics to automated translation services—are largely behind the sluggish employment growth of the last 10 to 15 years. Even more ominous for workers, the MIT academics foresee dismal prospects for many types of jobs as these powerful new technologies are increasingly adopted not only in manufacturing, clerical, and retail work but in professions such as law, financial services, education, and medicine.
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