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    Design "Safe" and “Bleed" Guidelines

    Safe Area

    Many of Zazzle's products provide Safe and Bleed guidelines to help make sure the product you buy looks the way you want it to look. On many products, there are 3 guidelines visible when they are turned on.

     

    Guidelines Toggle Button

     

     

    Green - Safe Line

    The Safe line appears as a green dotted line when you’re designing your product.

    If there are important parts of your design, like text or photos, that MUST appear on your product, keep those inside the Safe line.

    In this example, some of the text and parts of the faces in the photo are outside the Safe line and could end up being cut off.

    Example - Poor use of Safe line

     

           

     

    Design Product

     

    Red - Bleed Line

    "Bleed" is a printing term used to indicate the area that will be trimmed off after printing. The Bleed line appears as a red line when you’re designing your product.

     

     

    If you want your design to reach all the way to the edge (so that there isn’t any white space along the edges), then make sure your photos or background images extend to the Bleed line. Even better, let them go past the Bleed line.

    In this example, the photos do not reach the Bleed line along some of the edges, resulting in white space at those edges.

     

    Example - Poor use of Bleed line

     

         

    Design Product

     

    Blue - Print Line

    So what about that blue line? That’s the Print line and is where we will try to cut or print your design on the product. However, there might be slight variations when it is made, which is why the Safe and Bleed lines are so useful.

    If you keep the important parts of your design inside the Safe line and make sure your background images reach the Bleed line, you’ll end up with beautiful, professional-looking products.

     

    Example - Good use of Safe and Bleed lines

     

             

     

    Design Product

     

     

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