These are a series of definitions of commonly used jargon from within the printing and promotional gifts and personalised clothing markets.

Bleed
When printing onto an object (mostly paper), it’s common for there to be a run-off area. Your artwork is expected to fit within a given area, say 100mm x 250mm, but you will need to allow for an area bigger than this, usually 5%, so that the printers can print beyond the given area. This area is called a ‘bleed’.

Blind Embossed
Embossing is an old established technique for personalising leather, soft PU/plastic, and diaries, whereby a heavy metal die is moulded in the shape of your logo or message. It then strikes the material with sufficient force as to leave an impression of your logo. Embossing is commonly used with a gold or silver foil, which is left behind, thereby colouring the logo in a gold or silver colour. This method is called foil embossing, whereas blind embossing is done without any foil.

Carriage
The cost of transporting the product from the production line, to your chosen address. In the promotional gifts market in the UK, ‘Carriage’ is often NOT included in displayed pricing and will need to be added to the total costs.

Foil Embossed
See ‘blind embossed’ above

Half Tones
A half tone is like a gradient of a solid colour. If you look at newspaper print close up, you will see its really made of lots of little dots, giving the illusion of greytones. Think of an apple that is pale green at one end, and gradually changes its shading to dark green at the other end. These are all a form of half tones, and may cause problems with certain types or printing. Many print processes for promotional giveaways use processes called ’screen printing’ or ‘pad printing’. Both of these processes can only use artwork with solid colours, so in the example above, the apple would have to be just one colour, not a gradient of colours.

Jacquard
This is a term commonly used with embroidery. When you are having your company logo embroidered, the artwork is first digitized so that the embroidery machines know how to lay down and build the embroidery up and onto the garment. Your logo will have been a flat two dimensional object, and embroidery effectively turns it into a three dimensional one. Having created the digital disc of your logo, it now needs to be tested and embroidered onto a test swatch. This is called the jacquard, and will be shown to you for approval, prior to production commencing on the full consignment of embroidered garments.

Jpeg
The true definition of this is ‘joint photographic experts group’, but lets not worry too much about that. It’s a simple artwork file, of the type you would get from a digital photograph. It’s usually not of a high enough standard for use within screen printing processes.

Origination
The artwork you provide that will ultimately be printed onto the promotional product you have selected, has to be set-up so that the production machine can understand your artwork. This process varies from company to company, and basically involves the shop floor ‘tooling up’ for your job, prior to it coming on line. In the case of a diary, it will involve the creation of a blocking die to imprint your logo, in the example of a pen, it may involve a complicated process to create tiny little silk screens to squeeze the inks through and onto your pen. These charges are called ’screen charges’, ’set-ups’ or ‘origination’

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