Print design is the job of arranging words, pictures and space so they come out right on paper. Same instincts as a screen, different rules. Ink spreads, paper drinks it, and once the machine has run there’s nothing left to edit.

Which is why the thinking happens before anything gets printed, not after.

What does print design actually cover

Print design covers anything physical with your name on it. Business cards, leaflets, folded brochures, price lists, menus, posters, pull-up banners, van livery, shop signage, labels, headed paper, and the compliment slip that goes in the box. The design half is deciding what goes where, how big it sits, in what colour, and in what order somebody’s eye picks it all up. The print half is making sure that decision survives contact with a machine, a blade and a folding roller. Those two halves aren’t separate jobs, and most of the grief in printing comes from treating them as if they were. A leaflet laid out on a screen with no thought for trim, fold or paper weight looks thin and cheap when a box of them lands on your step. Done properly, the thing you approved is the thing you can hand over without explaining what went wrong with it.

Why does print still matter when everyone is online

Because a printed thing sits still. A card stays in a wallet, a price list stays on the counter, and a sign keeps working every time somebody walks past it. None of that needs a search, a click or a signal.

Print also turns up uninvited, in a hand or through a door. That’s a blunt instrument, and that’s the point. If you work one town and the villages round it, you can put something solid in front of nearly everybody who lives there.

The catch is that print is fixed. Change your number and you’ve got a box of cards you can’t use. So it earns its place on the things that don’t change often, and loses to a web page on the things that do.

Print or screen, which suits the job

What you’re trying to do	Print tends to win	Screen tends to win
Be remembered after meeting someone	A card or leaflet left behind	An email that gets filed and forgotten
Reach one estate or one high street	A door drop or a poster	Hard to aim that tightly
Change a price or a service next month	Awkward, you reprint	Easy, you edit the page
Look solid to somebody standing in your unit	Signage, menus, price lists	Nobody opens a website on site
Be found by someone who’s never heard of you	Only if it lands in the right hand	Search does the finding for you

How do you brief print design without knowing the jargon

Tell the designer the job, not the artwork. Say what the thing is for, who’ll be holding it, where it gets handed over or posted, and roughly how many you want, then let them work out the size, the fold and the finish. Bring whatever you’ve already got: your logo files, photos of your own work rather than stock ones, the wording you’d actually say to a customer, and a sample of something you liked from somebody else. If you haven’t got your logo as a vector file, say so early, because it changes what can be done with it. Be straight about the shape of your budget too, since a laminated folded brochure and a single sheet flyer are different animals. And name the date it has to exist by. A good brief is a few minutes on the phone and a folder of files, not a document with headings in it.

Worth digging out before you ring anyone:

• Your logo in the best quality you own, ideally the original file from whoever drew it.
• Photos of your work, taken on a decent phone in daylight, not pulled off a website.
• The wording, finished, including the phone number and address you want on it.
• Anything you’ve printed before, so the new thing matches it or deliberately doesn’t.
• A rough quantity, because it changes the sensible way to print the job.

What goes wrong most often

Almost every print problem is one of a handful of things, and all of them are cheaper to catch before the job goes on press.

• The logo gets pulled off a website, so it prints soft and fuzzy at any decent size.
• The wording is still being argued about after the artwork has been signed off.
• Colours look right on a bright screen and go flat in ink, because screens glow and paper doesn’t.
• Text and logos sit too close to the edge, so the trim slices straight through them.
• Type is set at a size that reads fine on a laptop and vanishes on a banner across a car park.
• Nobody said how many were needed, so the paper and the printing method were guessed at.

Questions people actually ask

Do I still need printed stuff if I’ve got a website

Depends who your customers are and where you meet them. If you turn up at people’s houses, work a market, or have a shopfront, something printed does a job a website can’t. If everything happens by search, spend the money there instead.

Can you use the logo I’ve already got

Usually, if you can find the original file. A logo lifted off a website or a social profile is often too small for anything bigger than a card. Send whatever you’ve got and you’ll be told straight whether it’ll hold up.

Is print design the same as graphic design

Print design is graphic design aimed at paper. The layout skills are the same; the extra bit is knowing what ink, paper and cutting will do to your layout before you find out the expensive way.

Who owns the artwork when it’s finished

You do. You get the files at the end, so you’re free to reprint wherever you like, whenever you like, without asking anyone’s permission or paying again for the design.

Getting something printed properly

If you’ve got a card, a leaflet or a sign that needs doing properly, ring 01823 242424 or email info@reor.co.uk and say what it’s for. One job, one price, no monthly anything. Design and print happen in the same building in Taunton, so if something looks wrong there’s nobody to blame but us.