As a stained glass construction designer, I know how important it is to understand the limitations of the materials I will be designing for. Since each shape will be cut out of separate glass colors, each shape’s design is crucial. The same is true for all media designs, online or printed.
Because glass will break at its weakest point, stained glass designers often avoid the following shapes: hour-glass, deep inner curves, and long, extremely slender shapes.
The first question a designer needs to determine is, “Is it for print or digital design?” The “materials” are very different for digital versus printed media.
Although there are no tangible materials used in digital design, light is the “material” used to represent color. Since an additive color model is used, RGB should be chosen as the color mode. Consider the resolution. In digital design, the standard screen resolution is 72ppi, and images should be exported to the web as .jpg or .png files.
When designing for print, ink is one of the materials used, so use a subtractive model such as CMYK. In printed design, the minimum standard resolution for print is 300. If the image’s resolution is less than 300, uncheck the resample box and increase the resolution to 300. Since this will decrease the dimensions, determine if the image is too small for the design.
Designing for print is a little more complicated than digital. When choosing colors for your printed project, you will work with spot colors, process colors, or a combination of both. Each has its benefits and limitations.
A spot color is a ready-made blend of printing ink in a standardized color that is printed with its own printing plate. The most common system of spot colors is the Pantone Matching System. A number is explicitly associated with one color. A “C” or “U” signifies coated or uncoated.
As a designer, you will need to know if the project will be printed on coated or uncoated paper prior to selecting spot colors. (There is no difference in how Pantone 185U and 185C is made.) Since coated paper allows the ink to lay on top of the paper, the Pantone C colors will appear brighter. The uncoated paper will absorb more of the ink; the color will take on the paper’s color. Always refer to the printed reference cards.
Do not use the transparency effect on spot colors. The Pantone green with a transparency effect added will appear correctly on screen but print as a solid.
Although raster images can be used, usually spot colors are used for vector images such as logos or any other design where color consistency is crucial.
Four-color processing involves combining yellow, magenta, cyan, and black overlays to create a multitude of colors.
Four-color processing involves printing yellow, magenta, cyan, and black on separate plates to compose a full-color image. It uses a method of overlapping these plates to create a multitude of colors.
Raster images are made up of rows of pixels. Because the inks are transparent, the plate images are overlaid, resulting in many color combinations.
This is especially important to remember when deciding which black to use. A standard black will not be able to cover objects consisting of any other component color. However, using Registration Black presents another design challenge since the recommended ink coverage should not be above 340 percent. (Theoretically, the maximum ink coverage would be 100+100+100+100=400.)
If an unused spot color is left, it could lead to miscommunication with the printers, and an unused and expensive printing plate would be created for this color. To correct this, go to the dropdown menu in the Swatches window and select “Select All Unused.” Those unused swatches will then be highlighted so you can then delete them. Review any Preflight errors.
It’s important to know what materials you will be using before the design phase even starts.
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