Stickers and Bleed / Cut Lines

[whimsywhim]

Good morning,

What do you guys do about stickers and bleed lines?  My understanding is that it's best to put the image within the green lines.  However, it shows to the customer white areas around the edges.  If I were the customer, I would think that's how the sticker would be printed.  On the other hand, if the image goes to the blue lines and the image is cut off - not good, either.  

How do you handle that?  If you put the image to the green lines, do you explain in the description?  

Thanks so much!

[PenguinPower · Accepted solution]

There seems to be some amount of confusion over this... So first let's define some things.

The red line is the "bleed line" - you need to extend your background to this line so that any variation in trimming or print placement on an object does not leave unintended white space at its edges (the background 'bleeds' beyond the edge of the actual product) 
The blue line is the final dimension of the actual product. While the product will be trimmed to that size there is no guarantee that the cut will always be 100% centered within the printed area. This is the area that the company endeavors to trim to. Anything outside of this area may show, but should never be expected to appear on the final product. 
The green line indicates the largest amount of variation that might ever possibly be expected to happen for the particular product. While the company does its best to trim products evenly and it's likely that your trim will be more similar to the blue line, anything inside of the green line should always be safe. (note that this area sometimes may also refer to the 'clean' print area - such as in the case of paper plates.. the 'safe' area is small, but indicates only the area within the middle of the plate that will be totally flat, as the edges may be distorted/folded in the process of forming the plate). 

So - Yes, if you place a single image fully within the green area, it will definitely have a white border... The customer should expect that, because that is what will print.

When you are creating you need to take all of this into account. Whether you are drawing, making photographs or doing layout, you need an image or design with a large enough border that is not vital so that it can extend all of the way to the red bleed line without risking cutting off anything important to the image. You also have to realize that different products will have different design requirements, so the bleed lines and safe lines are not always going to be in the same place or proportions.... A product that is fine on a sticker may not work on a button (as the image also needs to wrap around the edges).. 

None of this is exclusive to Zazzle. All printers have tolerances that they can print to and it's always been something that graphic designers have had to take into account when designing items for print. These days with laser cutters and computer controlled trimmers etc. much of it is way more precise than it's ever been, but it's still your responsibility to look at the templates you are using and understand that not everything can have millimeter precision... 

My suggestion - keep these thing in mind when drawing, painting or photographing things that will be single images and remember to leave a little space around the edges. Don't put subjects or important elements directly near any edge. When designing things that can be multiple layers - use those layers. Don't design something with a background image, foreground image, text etc, as all one piece. Bring those in as separate elements and use the design tool's layers to build your image. Not only will it be easier to work within those guidelines, you will also be better able to quickly adapt your designs for differently sized and shaped products. 

[whimsywhim]

Wow!!  This is incredible information!  I can't tell you how much I appreciate this!  Thank you so very much!!