Junk & Disorderly.

Bouquet of violets brooch, c. 1960

I had another client today get confused and upset at how I labeled their final file.

(If you don't know already, I'm a graphic designer)

The filename was something like "ProjectnameFNL-BLEED-DIE.pdf"

I also named the email "Projectname Final File - Bleed & Die"

Now, for the non-designers out there, a bleed is how you get the picture to the edge of the page in a document. You can't just print an 8.5x11 page in that situation, you have to print a larger page, and trim it to 8.5x11, and that overprint that you cut down is called the "bleed".

Die is short for dieline. If you are printing something in a different shape than a cutter can make (basically anything without straight lines) then you need a die. A die also helps trim things a lot faster, some can do a hundred sheets at a time, as opposed to manually doing it (which I'm not even sure how you'd even do that)

In this situation, I was making a box. They are notoriously tricky, but I've done a bunch before. And the person I was dealing with was new, and she had to send along the final approval to her boss.

She wasn't rude, but was clearly uncomfortable in our meeting today. I really had to explain it to her, and said that these were industry standard things and her printer needs this info. I also have worked with her boss before and absolutely knew that they'd understand the terms.

This is a kind of sample of what I mean. The dieline is the pink line. It is where things will be cut. You can see that it is a special shape that can't just be cut out regularly.

Everything blue outside the pink line is the bleed. you won't see any of that in the final folded box.

And the white lines you see are just the fold lines. They are usually part of the die line, but have a different process to use them.