Whether you're a junior designer, experienced designer or a marketing professional looking to diversify your skills, there is an abundance of online resources available to help you save time, save money, increase speed to market and find inspiration. We've collected some of our client's favourite go-to tools from InDesign Templates, Spine With Calculators, Die Knife Keylines and Inspirational communities.
At Printcraft we have historically always provided this service to our clients but to date have only done so upon request. Due to the popularity of utilising our extensive keyline library, we decided to make this resource more accessible and easier to use for everyone with an online and searchable library on our website.
Our extensive catalogue of resources helps to reduce pre-press time, minimise the occurrence of reprints and optimise the production process of print projects. Whether you're just learning how to set up documents for print, looking to save time or wanting to save on the cost of a new die knife, our Resource Library has something for you and we are adding more useful resources each month.
We offer unlimited downloads of our free resources including InDesign Templates, Keylines and Tutorials. Visit our Printcraft Resource Library to gain access to this exclusive content.
Designing a colour scheme for a brand that compliments both printed, tangible collateral and digital online assets can be challenging. It's generally a good idea to get the help of an experienced design or branding agency. But perhaps due to the ever-changing and uncertain environment many industries now face, we are seeing more and more clients in marketing and even administrative positions multi-tasking, doing branding, logos and print designs themselves. While this is great, it is a lot to learn in a short space of time so using a cool tool like Coolers Colour Pallette to select an impactful colour scheme can be super helpful and fun.
This clever tool has some really handy features, like allowing you to lock in one or more primary colours and use the spacebar to browse through a range of complementary secondary and highlight colours. And more importantly for Print Designers, you can change the colour code to display CMYK, HEX, RGB and more depending on your projects medium. Check out his great tool here: https://coolors.co/
A common question we are asked is: What width should my spine be? So we have created this handy and free to use Spine Width Calculator to make it easier for our clients to calculate the width of the spine on their books, catalogues, diaries, magazines and more. Ensuring your artwork has the correct spine width will ensure your project timeline does not get delayed during the pre-press process, prior to production. Generally, if the spine width is incorrect the file will need to be returned to the designer for amendment. Try our easy to use Spine Width Calculator here.
Did you know that the texture of Uncoated paper can make a considerable difference to the thickness of your spine? If you're thinking of using Uncoated stock we definitely recommend contacting us so we can assist prior to finalising your print-ready artwork.
4. Adobe Color
Adobe offers another great colour tool for designers. One feature Print Designers really love is the Extract Theme tool which allows you to upload an image and extract a colour scheme. Just as quickly as you upload the image, Adobe delivers a 5 colour scheme that you can download or copy or send directly to your Adobe Cloud Library. Just like that, you have a complete theme that might complement a featured image on the front of a brochure or provide an impactful colour pallet for your pull up banners main image. Try Adobe's clever colour tools here.
Have you ever sent your finished file to a Printer who's come back to tell you that your file doesn't have Bleed? Did you wonder "What is bleed?" Or perhaps your document was missing Crop Marks? Hover over our interactive guide to see what Bleed, Trim, Margins and Crop Marks are and click on each for more information as well as how to set up your Print-Ready file, using the most common design tool, InDesign. Feel free to share this helpful, interactive Guide you can find it on our website here.
6. Behance
If you're not already checking out Behance for inspirational design, branding and print ideas then you'll want to pop over and check it out ASAP. Behance is a community of incredibly talented designers showcasing their portfolio of work. You can also narrow down your search to a location which can be a great way to find a Graphic Designer or Illustrator with the style you're looking for, perhaps with demonstrated experience in print and within a location suitable for you. This is another brilliant incentive from Adobe supporting the creative and design geniuses who are helping brands to stand out. Check Behance out here.