by caughtatwork
BLEED AREA
* For Bumper Stickers please add 2mm excess bleed on each side of your artwork past the trim edge of your design. ie: A 51 x 102mm sticker canvas should be 55 x 106mm including bleed (For cutting purposes).
* For Paper Labels, Foil Labels please add 3mm excess bleed on each side of your artwork past the trim edge of your design. ie: A 55 x 90mm sticker canvas should be 61 x 96mm including bleed (For cutting purposes).
OK, that's fine. In essence, the provision of bleed means there will be no white space showing at the edge of the stickers after trimming.
The bleed area is the inked area past the trimming edge of the sticker so that even allowing for movement during printing and trimming, there will be no unwanted white edge left. The term bleed is perhaps best understood if you think of how blood spreads through a material - so ink spreads over (and depending upon the permeability) into the substrate but unlike blood it enables a better final result in so doing
The difference in bleed size is due to the compounding inaccuracy of a specific sequence of devices used in the particular print process. At a minimum, press and trimmer of some kind. A simple example - offset printing is more accurate than digital.
You will usually be required to place trim marks outside the trim area or in the case of a non-rectangular shape you may be required to provide a 2nd artwork with the shape shown - be careful to name and mark it as a 'positional' as they might be printed when not so marked.
Regards, Kenny
