Let it Bleed, Part III

Hi there. In the last two posts I talked a lot about what bleeds are and how to achieve them, but didn’t really address the why of the thing. So why do you want your document to bleed (or not)?

In short, it’s a status thing. A display of perceived wealth and power, a show of financial cojones, a demonstration of your ability to indulge the frivolous... it’s showing off. Stripped down to it’s most basic level, a printed piece is a sheet of paper with some sort of visual information on it. Bleeding that image off the edge of the sheet doesn’t make the text more legible. It doesn’t make the image more recognizable. It doesn’t really do anything but cost more. You’re printing a little extra image on a little extra paper because you want everyone to know you can afford to trim it off and throw it away. It’s a bit like a sandwich with the crusts cut off. Is it better? Depends on who you are and what you value.

I guess what I’m saying is it’s a personal decision. Who are you, what is your message, how do you want to be perceived? If you just need to get your information out there, bleeds are superfluous. On the other hand, if part of your message is “I run such a successful organization that we can afford the best of the best”, then bleeds and any other extra finishing steps might help you blow your audience away. Neither is inherently ‘better’, and either may seem preferable depending on your viewpoint.

Here’s a perfect example of how complex this can be:

Let’s say you’re a non-profit organization devoted to saving the planet, like the Sierra Club, or Greenpeace, or whatever. As a non-profit, you need to solicit huge amounts of dough from contributors great and small, but the big fish are always financially tastier. Conventional wisdom would dictate that any green organization would want to use the least amount of paper possible, and the simplest black & white designs in an effort to use up the fewest natural resources. On the other hand, you need to impress the hell out of people who have access to large amounts of excess cash in order to keep your operation up and running. That means presenting your info in the most professional manner possible which, in the world of printing, means full color photography bleeding off the edges of glossy paper. You have to get their attention because you need their money, and you’re probably going to have to turn around and spend some of it on more flashy presentations to get more of their money to spend on... well, you get the picture. Our society is more than a little out of whack, and values strange things. As a result, those who want to encourage responsible green behavior often have to employ a bit of old-fashioned resource wasting excess just to get potential donors’ attention.

Don’t believe me? Here’s another scenario:

Imagine you’re a six figure upper middle management type (or the dilettante spouse thereof), and you genuinely want to share some of your hard earned largesse with a worthy charitable organization. You’re sipping your half-caff mochaccino latte and sorting the days mail. You find, among the barrage of bills, sorrority/faternity/alumni newsletters and shopping circulars, a black & white hand addressed flier from a local grass roots recycling initiative and a full color glossy tri-fold brochure bar coded mailer with a picture of a happy dolphin bleeding off all four sides of the front panel from... well, whoever, you don’t care anymore, that dolphin looks so happy... The point is, both of these organizations are soliciting a contribution from you, and you’re probably only going to cough up for one of them. Which one will it be? It really depends on who you are and what you value (and how gosh darn happy that dolphin looks).

Your printed piece is a two dimensional representative of you and your message. It's out there in the world, and it needs to tell people exactly what you want them to know about you. At the end of day, any decisions you make about design and printing are up to you, but remember this: no amount of over-the-top production value dazzle or aw-shucks common-as-clay grovelling is any substitute for knowing your audience.

Good luck!