Print-ready in five minutes — every export, every time
Bleed, trim, safe zone, color profile, total ink limits — the export checklist we run before any file leaves the studio.
A print-ready file isn't a vibe; it's a checklist. Every artwork that leaves the studio has bleed, has trim, has a safe zone for live copy, has a known colour profile, and respects the print shop's total ink limit. Skip any one of those and you'll either reprint at your own cost or watch a client's logo bleed off the trim. The list itself is short and stays the same whether you're sending a poster, a card, or a roll-up.
Bleed is 3 mm on every side for press work in Kenya, 5 mm for billboards. Live copy stays 4 mm inside the trim — anything closer risks getting shaved by a slightly off-register cutter. Convert the document to CMYK before exporting; we keep a master InDesign profile that pre-applies the press's ICC, with rich-black set to 60/40/40/100 so deep blacks don't go muddy. Total ink limit (TIL) is 280% on coated stock, 240% on uncoated. We use Acrobat's Output Preview to check TIL on every page before we send.
Export PDF/X-1a or PDF/X-4 depending on what the printer prefers, with all fonts embedded and transparency flattened. Run a final preflight in Acrobat Pro: bleed present, no spot colours unless intentional, no images below 280 DPI at final size. Five minutes from press, every time — it sounds tedious until the first time you avoid a 200-poster reprint because the safe zone caught a number that would otherwise have been cut in half.