Throughout our time printing for even the most organised businesses, we’ve seen many fall victim to simple spelling mistakes and formatting issues. All of these could have been avoided if they had taken time to follow a print proofing guide!
Before BrunelOne.com can print any job, we ask all of our customers to “proof check” their artwork. After you’ve spent a while on designing your print, it is easy for your mind to not see simple mistakes. That’s why we suggest printing off a draft and getting someone else to look over the design for you. When ‘proofing’ the artwork, we advise going through the following points:
Key Areas to Check:
- Spelling and grammar (keep a dictionary handy for those tricky words!)
- Details (email / web address, phone number, dates and times?)
- Logos / Images (are they the right resolution? Do they look sharp enough? Are they stretched?)
- Size (is it A6 size or A4? Or somewhere in between?)
Spelling and Grammar
It’s easy to get confused between words like “your” and “you’re” and know how many “c’s” to include in recommend*, so we always recommend** reading your copy out loud. Read each line of text slowly, and if you find that it helps, use a blank sheet of paper to cover up the lines below the one you’re reading . To be extra careful, paste your copy into a word processing document with spell check, or keep a dictionary handy to check those words which you are not too confident about.
It’s better to be extra careful before printing, than to waste time and money by identifying the mistake once printed!
Examples of common misspellings:
| Correct Spelling | Common Misspelling |
| accommodation | accomodation |
| apparently | apparantly |
| business | buisness |
| calendar | calender |
| definitely | definately |
| environment | enviroment |
| independent | independant |
| receive | recieve |
| separate | seperate |
| truly | truely |
Details
Does the artwork have all the necessary details? Have you thought about how people will read your document at first glance? Are the details in the right place? Are they clear? For example, on your business card, do you have your mobile and your land-line number? For your letterhead design, does it feature your company number, VAT number and registered address? For your promotional flyer, is the call to action clear and easy to read?
Size
Is the artwork the right size? Are you viewing the document at 100%? You may have started a design on a larger document, planning to print on an A6 flyer but then decided to make a bigger impact with a A5 flyer size. Have you resized your artwork? Does it have the appropriate bleed? If you don’t know what size, check with our bleed guide.
Logos / Images
If you’ve devised your own logo or inserted photos and other graphics into your artwork, it is worth checking to see if it will print out clearly. Ensure all images you insert are 300 DPI – even if you save the artwork document as 300 DPI, a 72 DPI image / logo that you’ve inserted into the artwork will remain that resolution. We also recommend viewing your artwork at 400% to check logos and pictures are at sufficient quality. Read more about resolution in our Resolution Guide.