OK, this is going to be a steep learning curve for many. So you need to have a comfy chair, a coffee handy (maybe a snack too!) and a little patience. We're going to take you on a little trip down the road of desktop publishing. It can get a little bumpy now and then, but you'll make it through with our help.

Many customers ask us for tips on designing Business Cards, Brochures and Letterheads! The following four articles will be covering the most common mistakes we see made.

Incorrect Page size. Yep, it sounds like it would be a hard mistake to make, but this is one of the most common mistakes we see. Most of the time it's because the designer just starts the design of the Business Card, Brochure or Letterhead with the default page size of the application, which could be Letter or A4.

This can be a problem when supplying to a printer, since many times they have automatic 'imposition' or layout applications to place your job on a 'press sheet'. If the page size is incorrect it means it won't position it correctly and can cause it to be cut at the wrong position. This is completely undesirable! What the printer then has to do, is adjust the page size, before they go to the imposition stage. If there's a few pages this takes a little time, but If there's a lot of pages, it can take a long time! Regardless of how much time it takes printers will usually charge for it. In many cases, printers will simply reject the job and ask you to resupply it.

The solution? Contact the print provider before creating your document. Request the precise size of the final product. Then simply type that into your design application. This can be under 'document setup' or 'page settings' in some applications. However, if you're doing it in Adobe Photoshop or another 'pixel based' application, you'll need to make the document larger again to account for bleed. We'll explain what bleed is in the next article.

Yes it's not rocket science, but unfortunately it is a very common mistake we see in Business Cards, Brochures and Letterheads! And it takes the cake as being Public Enemy #1 for printers!