In printing terms “bleed” is referred to as a place or places where image on the finished piece is intended to go all of the way to very edge of the sheet. In order to accomplish this effect, we need to have a little extra image beyond where the final cut is supposed to be made. Standard bleeds are 1/8th of an inch (.125″). Cropmarks (as shown in the image above) show our bindery where the cut needs to be made. The image beyond the cropmarks is considered the bleed.

Why we need bleeds is simple. While our computerized guillotine cutters are precise, when cutting large stacks of sheets, there is a very slight variance, meaning that we could set our cutter to cut right on the very edge of the image of the top sheet, but when the blade goes through the stack it may vary slightly leaving a white line on the bottom sheets, which would totally ruin your intended effect! Bleed ensures that there are no white lines and that your print project turns out as you intended and looking it’s best.

So, what does this mean to you as a designer? This means that, unlike your web projects, on your print projects you need to plan for bleed in your file when placing images and creating graphics by making sure you have enough image extend past the edge of your document. Indesign and Quark make planning for bleed easy by either setting your bleed margins or dragging guides yourself.