Design Requirements
Graphic Design
Design requirements for graphic design are so crucial. Since this type of design can be used in both in the digital and printing. We need to ensure the correct formats, resolution, colour modes and so on are met.
We are going to get technical and discuss topics in depth. Its a great resource to refresh or educate and will help you when we start asking questions.
Website Design
In order to produce the most beautiful website we need amazing pictures with great quality.
Even though websites don’t use 300 ppi images, in fact the resolution is so low its round 92 – 72 ppi, so the document size could be small but the image dimensions should be large to maintain the image’s beauty.
Let’s get Technical
Images
This includes Logos, photos and illustrations.
All images should be supplied in high resolution where possible.
What does this mean? You will see things like 300ppi/dpi (pixels per inch/dots per inch) dpi is a printing terminology.
300ppi is considerd a high res (resolution) image. But if the dimentions are small its usless. Just like if a 72ppi image had dimentions of 3000 + px in height and width that will still be a ‘usable’ image in both print and web.
CMYK vs RGB
CMYK = Cyan Magenta Yellow blacK
Digital Printers (ink jet desktop and laser printers) use these colours to print. So its a printing terminology.
RGB = Red Green Blue
All colour screens use RGB + light. So when designing a website RGB images and colours are used. Hexadecimal is a 6 digit code RRGGBB using numbers 0-9 and A-F.
For all web and all interface design (UI) hexadecimal values are used to represent a colour these values/codes look like this: #0fa1f6 and this is the colour that code represents!
Printing & Print Ready
When a design goes to print there are a few steps or process that design need to go through.
The file needs to be designed in the correct size.
Saved in the correct colour mode like CMYK or Pantone.
The document needs to be set up like the image: have cut lines, include bleed (where necessary) and working with in the allocated area.
Generally when you purchase advertising space in a publication they send you a document with sizes, the set up guide for their needs etc. This document needs to be emailed to us to ensure the printers don’t have a tough time with the file.