These little guys can be tricky if you don’t know what you’re doing. Crop marks tell us where to cut or trim your document and if set up improperly they’re not easy to fix down the road.

If you’re confident that you know how to include proper crop marks in your documents then please do. Crop marks are your friend.

If you’re unsure however, consider crop marks your foe and leave it to the pros (that’s us).  When sending us your files, indicate the final size you would you’re your document to be, include your bleed (if you have one) and let us know that you’re unsure about the proper crop marks.  We’ll make sure everything comes out peachy!

If we ask, “do you have a bleed?” we’re not suggesting you put on a band-aid.

In print and design language, the term bleed refers to getting something to print right to the edge of the page. In order to do this, colours or images need to extend past the perimeters of the page by 1/8” with crop or trim marks.  We then print your document on a larger piece of paper and trim off the excess.

For example, if you’d like to print an 8.5 x 11 poster with an edge-to-edge background you would need to make the document 8.75 x 11.25. We would then trim off the excess, leaving you with a clean and tidy 8.5 x 11.