Did you find part two interesting? Maybe it was a little too graphic (after all, we are discussing blood, here!) but it has to be talked about in an article like this. Now, onto another topic which won't be so gory. However, we are still talking about guillotine blades. In the previous article, I'd mentioned that the third most commonly made mistake is similar to the second: critical content is too close to the final trim.

In the last article we talked about bleed, which is anything that is used in the background as an effect and goes to the paper's edges.

Critical content is the exact opposite. Basically it's classed as anything which is NOT a background effect. This can be such things as Logo's, body text, headlines, captions and photographs. Remember, anything that's not used as a background effect.

Remember that we discussed the fact that guillotines and book cutters don't generally cut each sheet in precisely the same location? The paper reacts to the pressure that is applied during cutting, and bleed compensates for if the sheet is cut to larger than a normal size.

If the blade ends up cutting closer then formal for the final trim, your "critical content" of text, logos, and other items could end up being cut.

If the trim ends up being too close (1-2mm), then the "aesthetics" of your completed project could look as though it was cut too close after all.

The Solution? Critical content needs to be in at least 5mm from the products final trim. You need to use 'margins' to guide you when your placing your graphics and text. This is for magazines, brochures, business cards, stationary and any other printed product.

If your producing a thick book, you'll need to make the distance from the spine quite a bit more than 5mm, probably more like 15-20mm. You'll also need to ensure that you have 'facing pages' settings switched on so that an odd numbered pages will have the spine on the left and even numbered pages will have the spine on the right.

The top, bottom, and right (opposite the spine) should have a white space of no less than 5-10mm between the text and the edge of the paper in order to have a consistent look.