How much of a bleed would you add to full size side art ?

[mike boss]

Working on a project now and I'm a little stuck on how much of a bleed to add (for printing).

For the marquee, CP, (smaller things) I add an inch all the way around, but that seems a insufficient for full size sideart ?

Thoughts, advice, opinions ?

[JDFan]

The bleed is mainly for the printer as many printers tend to blur things that are printed too close to an edge so the size of the print doesn't really make that much difference in the amount of bleed needed it is more how much space is needed for a particular printer to keep all the details lined up correctly on the edges of the print. (though it does also allow some leeway in lining the print up correctly if the cabinet is slightly different than the print) Normally a minimum of 1/8" is sufficient for most printers so 1" is a bit overkill and may wind up costing you more for the prints since an extra inch on all four sides added to both sides and the CP would mean an extra 6 inches of width and 4 inches of length if laid out on a single print area and could require using a larger size paper width depending on how you lay out the full artwork for printing (ie. if you lay out both sides and the CP in the middle for printing as a single sheet that extra inch on each side that you mention using currently of each piece adds 6 inches (3 pieces  x 2 extra inches per piece) of width needed ! )

Just as an example say your printing company has a 24 and a 36 inch wide printer and paper and your side art is 22.5 inches wide -- If you lay out the side with an extra inch on each side you are going to need them to use the 36 inch printer and paper because all of a sudden your side art is now 24.5 inches wide and will not be able to be printed on the 24 inch machine and paper so you will pay quite a bit more for the printing - when in actuality it would have fit fine on the 24" paper if you had used a normal 0.125" (1/8) bleed ! ( best to find put what dimensions you actually are needing and what dimensions are normally available for printing before deciding on the artwork layout and then optimize it for the job.

[mike boss]

Awesome ,thanks.
I'll edit my bleeds.

[n3wt0n]

If you are using the term bleed then you will be having the printer trim your final piece to a specific size. In this case the 1/8" suggested by JDFan would be acceptable as well as 1/4" - I have worked for printers who required 1/4" (large format printer) and 1/8" (smaller cardstock jobs and business card type stuff). If you have simply decided to leave extra for yourself to install control panel work than this shouldn't be referred to as bleed or the printer may expect to trim to it. This is extra image that you require so that you can have some leeway while applying your work and the size of the piece you are applying and the complexity of it will determine how much extra you require. For side art I would allow an extra bit all the way around so that if you get the artwork off slightly you can still cover the entire side. I would do the same for the control panel artwork. In this case its whatever you feel comfortable with and that may be 1" on the sideart.

[mike boss]

Thank you