This one goes out to the designers who are working with overprinted colors in their designs – especially black – and could use a little technical help getting it right.
The folks at Magazine Designing always give solid advice on these types of topics, and they’ve done it again here in their piece “Overprinting Black.”
First, the basics: “Overprinting is a process of printing one color on top of another. When you set an object to overprint (Window – Output – Attributes) it will overprint any other object below. This means that the bottom object will be printed entirely. On the other hand top object that is not set to overprint will drill a hole in object below. This is also known as knock out.”
The language isn’t the most fluent, but bear with it; the technical info is spot on.
The article is packed with design tips and technical info on how and when to use overprint vs. knock out, the kind of stuff that can make a huge difference in your finished product – and your relationship with the production team at the print shop.
Take a run through it and try out the techniques shown. While you might find some of it basic if you are an experienced designer, I bet you still pick up a trick or two to amp up your game.
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