A Plea for Postpress Standardization

摘要

It's not easy being a graphic designer these days. Printing company managers surely can sympathize with us, because we share the pressures of shorter deadlines, lower budgets and higher client expectations. Everyone wears more hats than they used to, and designers' responsibilities have crossed into traditional prepress work. We know ― send all of the fonts, pull bleeds and send high-resolution images. But, can anyone tell us what to call the folding style that folds in, and then in again? How do we set up the digital document correctly? What's the bind margin on a 3/4-inch Wire-O binding? How much space should we allow for a three-hole drill? We need answers to these and many other questions, because we want to prepare the files correctly to save time and expense. But, the printing industry has not made a concentrated effort to define and share information regarding postpress specification standards.