Week 7: Proofs, Imposition and Halftone
Assignment
Last week you created business card, letterhead and envelope designs for your restaurant.This week, you will create menu and take-out box designs for the restaurant.
Menu
Specifications and Content- Adobe InDesign
- Four-page menu (two pages front-and-back.)
- CMYK
- ¼" bleed and ¼"safe zone
- Include the logo
- At least 20 menu items with description and price, divided into at least 4 categories.
- Photographs and illustrations are optional but must be high-resolution if included.
- At least 2 typefaces but no more than 4. Limitless use of bold, condensed, extended, italicized, etc. styles within a typeface.
Do not use any of these layouts directly, but review them for design inspiration. In addition, do not use any free templates found online. Start your layout from scratch.
Articles
Below are some articles on how to get the best sales from a menu design. I highly recommend you read these before you get started.
- Menu Mind Games
- The Hidden Psychology of Menu Design
- Restaurant Menu Design
- How to Make a Restaurant Menu
You must print out the menu you designed, fold and bind it together to check whether it is actually workable. The mockup need not be printed in color.
Take-Out Box
Specifications and Content- Adobe Illustrator
- Printed on outside of box only
- CMYK
- ¼" bleed and ¼"safe zone
- At least 4 sides have text and/or image
- Include the logo
Here are some links that have to-go-box templates:
- ruthannzaroff.com
- yourpackagingsource.com
- whimsical-wendy.blogspot.com
- impress1.com
- melstampz.blogspot.com
- rainy.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com
Soft Proof Mockup
You must print out the box template you designed, then cut, fold and glue it together to check whether it is actually workable. The mockup need not be printed in color.
Portal
Upload the following to Week 8 Lesson:- restaurant menu (PDF)
- restaurant take-out box (PDF)
- menu mockup (printed, folded, and bound)
- take-out box mockup (printed, cut, folded, and glued)
Student Showcase
We will take a look at any of your new work which is ready to share.For the business card, letterhead and envelope projects, we will discuss the following aspects of each:
- Overall strength of the designs
- Degree to which:
- the stationery communicates the branding message
- the application of the logo within the stationery is appropriate
- the design across all three pieces is consistent
- the files meet specifications
Proofing
- It is very important to review the text, images and layout prior to printing.
- The later in the production process that you catch and fix errors, the more expensive and time-consuming it is.
- Checking the original before going to press is the common responsibility of the client, the designer, and the printing house.
- The client should check the content, layout and colors.
- The designer should check whether the layout and images represent the content and concept of the client's wishes, and that the document is suitable for reproduction in print.
- The print house should carry out all technical controls to make sure that the artwork and proofs are correctly adjusted for the printing process and the paper.
- It is the responsibility of the printing house to be sure that all checks have been made prior to printing.
Soft Proof
- A soft proof is the act of checking and approving text and images on the computer screen (typically via PDF.)
- If you are checking colors on the screen, it is important that the monitor be carefully calibrated. However, because screens are RGB and printing is CMYK, the colors will never be exactly identical.
- To get a true idea of the printed colors in the document, you must print a pre-press proof (more on this later.)
- You should check the following during a soft proof:
- typography
- image placement
- illustrations
- logos
- text
- spelling
- line arrangement
- format
- type area
- bleeds
Laser Printer Proofs
- Laser printer proofs can save money over having the print house provide a printed proof.
- However, you may not later claim any errors in the printed product regarding color and images if you opt out of the printing proof.
- Laser printer outputs are also not recommended for checking images, since they do not correspond closely enough color-wise with color on the press.
- Print on a larger-sized paper than your final printed product will be; this way you can check bleeds and printer's marks.
- Print four-color separated printouts to inspect trapping and overprinting.
Preflight Tools
- Design software comes with preflight tools which allow you to check the document's press-readiness.
- Generally, preflight is done by the printing house in order to verify the file is set up correctly for the specific printing process, paper, finishing and binding.
- Most digital documents received by print houses arrive with errors that must be corrected in the original design file.
- Preflight helps catch these errors as soon as possible in order to prevent cost overruns and delays.
Contract Proofs
- A contract proof is a color printout created by the print house which simulates how the printed document will look.
- The term contract proof refers to the legal contract between the client and printing house which is implied by approving the proof.
- The contract proof serves three main purposes:
- Ensures that any prepress work has been correctly carried out.
- Functions as the last checkpoint before printing plates are created.
- Used as a guideline for the press operator for the press operator as to how the client expects the end result.
- The contract proof was once created through elaborate chemical process such as Chromalin.
- Contract proofs are now created by an advanced color printer.
- If you decline to pay for a contract proof, you are limited in your options if you are not satisfied with the final printed product.
- You can never attain a 100% match between the contract proof and the printed product, but you can come very close.
Press Proofs
- Press proofing means printing a couple of sample copies right on the printing press before the complete press run is begun.
- Press proofs provide the most accurate representation of the final product.
- Press proofs are expensive and more time-consuming but give the surest preview of the colors and images.
Imposition
- Imposition is the step where you arrange the pages on the printer's sheet to utilize the paper in the best way.
- It is also used to ease the eventual finishing and binding process.
- Using the largest paper possible and filling it with multiple layouts can save the client money:
- It reduces paper waste.
- It reduces the amount of time the press is in operation.
- The way the pages are imposed in relation to each other is decided using an imposition dummy:
- Print out all the document pages.
- Fold them together the way the printed product will be folded.
- Paginate the pages.
- Unfold the sheet to see how the pages should be placed in relation to one another.
- Marks and bars are used on the imposition page to guide the printing, finishing, folding and binding processes.
- Imposition used to be done manually, but is now typically done using imposition software at the printing house.
Five Parameters that Affect Imposition
- The printed product's final format—this decides how many pages there will be room for.
- The number of pages in the printed product—if this is greater than the number of pages that can fit on both sides of the paper, you will need to execute many makereadies (a makeready is the all of the press settings and preparations required before the first approved printed sheet is produced.)
- Fiber direction—the paper fiber must run lengthwise along the fold, so the fiber direction influences the placement of pages on the paper.
- Finishing and binding equipment—the machines used to fold and bind the paper may have a maximum paper size they can handle, and folding machines may have a maximum number of folds they can make; some equipment need an extra gripping "lip" at the edge of the paper.
- Stitching method—different stitching methods place the sheets together in different ways.
Types of Impositions
Gang-Up- This method is used if the product only has one or two printed pages.
- You place as many copies of the page as possible on a single sheet of paper.
- For example, if you design a 8½"x11" page, it can be placed 4-up on a 19"x25" sheet of paper.
Prima-Secunda
- This is the most common type of imposition.
- A separate imposition and set-up of printing plates is done for each side of a printer's sheet:
- Prima (first) side
- Secunda (second) side
- This requires two make-readies per sheet.
Work and Turn (Halfsheet Work) and 2-Set (2-Up)
- In these techniques, the sheet has space for both sides of the printed product.
- A first form is imposed on one half of the sheet, and a second form is imposed one the other half.
- When the entire run is printed, the sheets are turned over and run through the printing press a second time.
- This method requires only one makeready.
Signatures and Sheet Order
- A signature is a large sheet printed with four or a multiple of four pages that when folded becomes a section of the book. The folded sheets are inserted into each other.
- Signature page arrangement is used for metal stitching (such as the saddle stitching used to bind magazines with staples.)
- With signature imposition, the first and last pages of the printed product will lie on the same side of the printer's sheet.
- Sheet order is when the folded sheets are gathered after each other into a bundle.
- Sheet order is used for glue binding and thread sewing, as for a book.
- With sheet order imposition, the first and last pages end up on the first and last printer's sheets, respectively.
Imposition Proofs
- Imposition proofs are the last proofs done before printing begins.
- They have many other names:
- blue copy
- blues
- plotter
- digital blue copy
- prototype
- These proofs are printed on large inkjet printers as a whole sheet true-to-size.
- The goal is to verify that the imposition has been done correctly.
Halftone Screening
- A traditional photograph consists of continuous tones—tonal transitions of color hues.
- The printing press cannot produce such continuous tones.
- Instead, it combines the printed and non-printed surfaces of the paper to achieve a similar effect to the naked eye.
- The printed image is divided into very small parts, which is referred to as halftone screening.
- There are two main techniques for halftone screening: traditional and stochastic.
- Halftone screens are created by the printer's RIP software.
Traditional Halftone Screening
- Traditional halftone dots are always the same distance from each other and vary in size and shape to create tones.
- In light areas, the dots are small. In darker areas, the dots are larger.
Stochastic Screening
- Stochastic halftone dots are always the same size but vary in distance from each other to create tones.
- This technique is also known as Frequency Modulated Screening (FM screening).
Hybrid Halftone Dots
- Hybrid halftone dots combine traditional and stochastic halftone techniques to take advantage of the best of both techniques:
- The stochastic halftone dot's ability to reproduce fine details.
- The traditional halftone dot's capability to depicted middle tones without patchiness.
- Hybrid halftones use the different techniques in different areas:
- Stochastic in light and dark areas.
- Traditional in middle tone areas.
Screen Frequency and Dot Size
- The screen frequency is a measurement of the number of halftone cells per line.
- It is measured in lines per inch (lpi).
- The lower the screen frequency, the larger the halftone cell, and consequently, the larger the halftone dot.
- A higher screen frequency means the image is divided into smaller parts (more rows per inch); this provides for finer tonal transitions.
- A halftone dot with 50% coverage in a 60 lpi screen is four times as big as the same halftone dot in a 120 lpi screen.
- The paper and printing method help determine what screen frequency you can print with.
- Paper suppliers usually provide screen frequency recommendations for different types of paper.
- 65 lpi: Coarse screen typically used to print newsletters and grocery coupons
- 85 lpi: Average screen typically used to print newspapers
- 133 lpi: High-quality screen typically used to print four-color magazines
- 177 lpi: Very fine screen typically used for annual reports and images in art books
