Print Design TipsTips and Information About Printing

Web design is not the same as print design, though the approach may be similar in terms of the design elements and use of graphics, textual elements and other print/rendition issues.

Print design has a tangible substance – you print it and that’s the finished product. You can see the finished design, handle it and take in the physical, sensual design elements, however this is not so for a web based design. Web based design work is not produced with a physical rendition on paper – it is designed for viewing on a computer screen, using a web browser and both of these factors will affect how the imagery and finished work are rendered to the individual viewer. In this sense, web design is transitory, it has no permanence in that what you see is what you get every single time, and you certainly cannot handle the finished product (even printing it out is not a true rendition).

For a client looking for help, there is a great deal of difference between a web designer and a print designer. Many web designers come to the art with a background in print design, however you as the client must be aware of the difference in the medium they are using if you are to get the most out of your budget.

When you look at a print design company, you should be assessing their physical portfolio of products in order top ascertain the print quality, design standards and quality of the finished work. With a web designer you should not be looking at printed renditions of their portfolio at all, but use a computer and web browser – in fact, look at the websites they have produced using different computers and web browsers to see how their finished product actually looks in real life to the end-user.

Web designers may have a browser they prefer to work with – Safari is the Apple Mac’s default web browser and many designers prefer to use a MacIntosh for their graphical work because it possesses superior graphic capabilities and applications. The “but” is that your customers may be like the 98% of the rest of the world who run Microsoft machines, where the default browser is Internet Explorer. Make sure the web designer is rendering your finished product so it looks good in the web browsers you target or expect your clients to be using.

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