Why Print And Digital Design Are Not The Same Thing
We tend to think logos or designs that look nice on the screen will also look good on printed business cards or banners, but there is a little more to it than that, and it often ends up with bad quality prints or blurry logos.
Resolution: 300dpi vs 72dpi
Resolution is how much detail an image has, and is measured in dots per inch or DPI. Screens need an image to be around 72dpi to be sharp, because that is all screens can display. Print generally requires a lot more detail at 300dpi to avoid looking blurry or pixelated on paper.
So an image that was made for your webpage and then printed will likely look pretty blurry. That is because that image was not made with the detail required for printing in mind.
Colour: CMYK vs RGB
Screens use RGB light to display colour and printers use CMYK inks. Because of this, what looks bright and vibrant on your screen can sometimes end up coming out dull and slightly different on your printed copy.
We suggest nominally converting designs to CMYK prior to sending them off to print, as well as doing a test run of the prints to see the actual colours prior to production and to avoid any unpleasant surprises.
File Formats: PDF/AI vs PNG/SVG/JPEG
Professional prints retain high resolution and colour data, so designers work with PDFs or AI files.
Generally digital design relies on file types such as PNG, SVG, or JPEG to ensure their load time and display are optimised for screens. SVG files are designed for website logos and icons. JPEG images are useful for photos on the web and retain a reasonable file sise. For self-service printing, PDFs are best. AI files preserve quality and are able to maintain color accuracy. Be aware that there is no file format that’s better than any other. You need to have different iterations of your design in order to achieve the optimum file for the surface that the end design will interact with. Having different iterations is advisable in case of time-sensitive requests. Having a variety of formats ready to go is a cost and time saver.
Print design services are available at Sunneo, as are digital design services. Our printing services include business cards, flyers, brochures, and signage. We take great care with each print project; we confirm all print files are of the correct resolution, color space, and file type to ensure our parts of the work meet a high standard of professionalism.
Your digital and print media sources should harmonise with one another. Maintaining consistency with your brand is important. A common beginner mistake is using a file pulled from a website to make a large print job. This file is usually a low resolution, unprintable file. Avoid this pitfall.
Printing at larger sises can result in blurry images.
If you’re ordering something to be printed big, make sure to find out from your designer or ask your printer if the file you provided is optimised for your printing request. It’s always better to be safe and avoid an unwanted dilemma.
Having a complete set of brand files for both print and digital is a good thing to have in advance.
One of the benefits of having a complete set ready is that new requests, such as a new business card design, social media graphics, etc. become much easier to fulfill.
A great time saver is to prepare the complete set in advance, since it greatly minimises the hassle of having to generate the same requests multiple times.
To get a quote and learn more, Please feel free to contact us. We look forward to assisting you.