Looking for a printing book

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Forbairt

Teaching / Designing / Developing
Morning,

I'm looking for advice on a book that would be good in describing tips and tricks for going to print. At the moment I'm only using Photoshop and the majority of graphics work I do is simple enough as such I'm in the dark when it comes to printing and the various requirements. I realise that I'd be better with quark / indesign for printed material.

I'd be interested in a good all round reference on it ... for example what is spot colour ... CYMK ... and so on (while I've basic understandings of a lot of the things printing still scares the hell out of me when you're going to get 1000's of copies of something printed)

Any advice appreciated.
Thanks,
James
 

jmcc

Active Member
Lulu.com has some good FAQs. But one book that I remember from years ago (when I was actively publishing books) was "Looking Good In Print". It is currently in its sixth edition. The emphasis of the edition I have is on producing publications for print. (It is from 1991 or so.)

Regards...jmcc
 

Forbairt

Teaching / Designing / Developing
Cheers guys I'll check em out during the week :) (will check if easons have them and I can have a sneaky read before purchasing)

Amazon is only showing the index and a few more pages for the Forms, Folds and Sizes one .. (some of the online reviews seem to be saying its very biased towards the US market ?)
 

figment

New Member
Computer Arts had a great Projects Special on print a few months back that you could get by backorder. It gave a good overview and step by step guides from start to end.
 

Forbairt

Teaching / Designing / Developing
Computer Arts had a great Projects Special on print a few months back that you could get by backorder. It gave a good overview and step by step guides from start to end.

I'll check it out cheers ..

Ok its annoying their website and lack of an index as such for recent magazines Computer Arts - Back Issue Archive

But the tutorials section seems to be amazing Computer Arts - Tutorials

Might be time to get a stick list together of graphic design resources on here :)
 

Forbairt

Teaching / Designing / Developing
Debating getting a subscription actually now ...

(another one I'll check out in easons :D ) in the past I've found it nice but including a lot of stuff I'm not entirely interested in. Maybe its time to have a browse of it again especially if its got semi regular print features
 

figment

New Member
Just to be clear. 'Computer arts' and 'Computer arts projects' are two separate magazines. Projects are out about 6 times a year and each issue focuses on a particular topic (sometimes collecting the best bits from 'computer arts'). The most recent one on the news stands is about logos and branding.
 

Forbairt

Teaching / Designing / Developing
Just to be clear. 'Computer arts' and 'Computer arts projects' are two separate magazines. Projects are out about 6 times a year and each issue focuses on a particular topic (sometimes collecting the best bits from 'computer arts'). The most recent one on the news stands is about logos and branding.

I'd semi figured it out when you linked to the projects back issues .. but thanks for clearing it up :)

The logos and branding one I'd find very interesting so hopefully its in :)
(won't get into town for a bit though)
 

Forbairt

Teaching / Designing / Developing
Just came across Printing.com have a guide on how they want to receive files that is a pretty good guide on print in general.
http://www.printing.com/pdfs/dfdguide.pdf

Cheers that looks pretty handy ... didn't get a chance to check out any of the project books yet.

A scary part of that printing.com pdf .. is
Include all fonts that you have used. .......... To comply with the licence agreement, you should remove the fonts from your system whilst we are processing your jobs
:eek:

Hmmm tried out vista print this week for a few things ... I guess I'll see how the stuff turns out will know early next week hopefully :)
 

figment

New Member
Also ignore the bit where they say dont supply .pdfs. Most good printers will take them and actually prefer them.
 

Forbairt

Teaching / Designing / Developing
Also ignore the bit where they say dont supply .pdfs. Most good printers will take them and actually prefer them.

Yeah I've not done that many print jobs and have no graphics background apart from the strong interest level of things which doesn't really give you confidence for print media.

I've only ever had to deal in PDF's as well normally get asked for EPS or PDF. But I've been asked to fix up a few bits over the coming weeks.
 

CiaranR

Weeno Ltd + Skimlinks.com
I just my first Billboard job this week 6 meters by 2.8 meters. Can't wait to see it printed. I sent over as 1/4 size PDF all fonts outlined and its all vector data so will scale fine. So if PDFs are good enough for billboards they should be grand for any letterheads or posters you are doing :)
 

Forbairt

Teaching / Designing / Developing
I just my first Billboard job this week 6 meters by 2.8 meters.

Wow sounds cool ... whats is it or are you allowed say ? and previews available ? :D

Largest I've done is only 1meter x 600mm stuff for show stands and unfortunately never got to see the end result ... which is a bit of a downer .. but ah well :)
 

CiaranR

Weeno Ltd + Skimlinks.com
It's printed on vinyl actually so it will be knocking around when it is finished with. Two copies of it!
 
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