Collages.net Blog » Album Design Tips

The busy season is in full swing and we know you’re designing those albums and books left and right! SO in order to avoid album design mistakes at all cost we thought we’d give a brief “HOW TO” regarding designing. An album reprint can be a costly mistake so knowing what bleed lines are can help you keep your sanity this holiday season as well as keep some money in your pocket!

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Why are bleeds important?

Ever wonder how we get all the pages to line up perfectly when we bind our albums? How the heck do we do that? Well, the simple answer is we don’t. It’s impossible to get pages to line up with each other, especially when they’ve been cut in half, and then adhered together. No album company can do it perfectly…fact!

After gluing all of the pages together, and before putting on the cover, we use a large guillotine cutter to lop off the rough edges. This is where those guidelines come in. We ask you to keep your photos inside of the bleed line, so they won’t be chopped, but what does this really mean when you are designing?

In this tutorial, we’ll make it very easy to understand. Follow these simple rules and you’ll never make a mistake.

1. Never line a photo up right on the line.

Album makers can’t guarantee where the cut will be. They can only guarantee that it will be somewhere between the edge of the paper and the guideline.

2. Never go just over the line.

If you think you’ll be safe by going just over the line. You are wrong. You could still end up with a strange white edge because there is a possibility of us cuting just before the edge of the photo.

3. Never get too close to the edge.

If we do cut right on the line, your photo will look pretty funny with that thin white border.

So, what do we do?

Well, here it is in two easy steps.

1. Stay well within the cut lines.

White space is your friend. Stay well within the guides and let your photos breath a bit.

2. Go all the way to the edge of the page.

Or go all the way to the edge, so you are 100% sure the image will be cut into. This works well with larger, wider shots where it doesn’t matter if you lose some of the background.