Bleed and the safe area, in plain words

Cards are printed a little larger than the finished card and then cut. A cut can land a fraction of a millimetre off, so two margins keep the card looking right.

• Bleed: 3 mm of artwork past the cut line on every side. It is cut away, and it means a colour that runs to the edge never leaves a thin white line.
• Safe area: the 3 mm just inside the cut line. Keep words, numbers and logos out of it, so nothing important is trimmed off.

Every design here already has both. To see them:

1. Tick Show the cut line and the safe area on the preview.

2. Check that nothing important sits between the two lines.

On the canvas, the red line is where the card is cut, and anything that matters belongs inside the blue line.

When you upload a PNG or JPEG to our print shop, the proof draws the same lines over it; a PDF is shown without them, so check the edges yourself. A file made to the exact card size with no bleed can still be printed: we make the bleed by mirroring the edges of your design, and the proof says so. See print-shop/proof.