Sophie Atkinson
Why the Last Look Matters More Than the First
There is a particular sinking feeling that comes with peeling a freshly printed sheet off the press and spotting a typo you have read past forty times. It is worse when you have already run fifty of them. Printmaking and paper craft reward patience, and the stage where most makers lose money is not the carving, the screen exposure, or the folding — it is the proofing. A proper proof costs you ten minutes and a sheet of cheap paper. Skipping it can cost you an entire edition, a wedding deadline, or a craft fair's worth of stock.
Proofing is not one action. It is three: reading a digital proof carefully, building a physical mock-up you can hold, and sweeping the words with fresh eyes. Do all three and you will catch the vast majority of the mistakes that ruin runs.
Reading a Digital Proof Without Being Fooled
A PDF on a backlit screen flatters everything. Colours glow, thin lines look crisp, and small text seems perfectly legible because you are twelve inches from a bright panel. Before you approve anything, work through the technical checklist:
- Bleed and trim. If your artwork runs to the edge of the sheet, you need roughly 3mm of bleed beyond the trim line, or you will get white slivers after guillotining.
- Crop marks and trim size. Confirm the finished size is what you actually ordered, not the size including bleed.
- Resolution. Images should be 300dpi at the size they will print. A 72dpi logo from a website will look soft and fuzzy on paper.
- Colour mode. Digital files in RGB will shift when converted to CMYK. Expect muddy greens, dull oranges and disappointing bright blues.
- Fonts and strokes. Embed or outline your fonts. Hairlines below about 0.25pt can vanish entirely on a letterpress or risograph.
- Ink coverage. Very dark, layered designs can exceed what a home inkjet or a small commercial press handles, leading to smudging and slow drying.
Make a Physical Mock-Up Before You Trust the Screen
This is the step most people skip, and it is the one that catches the errors that matter. Print your design on ordinary copier paper at 100% — no scaling to fit — then cut, fold and assemble it exactly as the finished piece will be.
- Fold dummies. A greetings card, a concertina booklet and a saddle-stitched zine all behave differently. Fold a blank one first so you know which panels end up where.
- Grammage. A design that feels substantial on 300gsm card can look flimsy on 120gsm paper. Test on the actual stock if you can, or something close.
- Grain direction. Folding across the grain cracks the surface. Fold with it and you get a clean crease.
- Read it at arm's length. Nine-point text that seemed fine on screen can be a squint in the hand. Anything intended to be read quickly should be comfortably larger.
If you are editioning a lino or screen print, make a proof pull on the final paper before you commit. Paper absorbs ink differently depending on its surface and sizing, and a print that sang on cartridge paper can fall flat on smooth Bristol board.
The Spelling Sweep: Slower Than You Think
You cannot proofread your own work by reading it normally — your brain corrects errors before you notice them. Change the method instead. Read the text backwards, word by word, which breaks the flow and forces you to see each one. Then read it aloud, ideally to another person. Then hand it to someone who has never seen it and ask them to look only for mistakes, not to comment on the design.
Check the details that software will not flag: proper nouns, postcodes, phone numbers, prices, dates and edition numbers. Watch for inconsistent British spellings — colour, centre, licence as a noun but license as a verb, practise as a verb but practice as a noun. Check apostrophes on possessives and plurals. Check that your opening hours, addresses and stall numbers are correct, and that any QR code actually scans to the right place before you print five hundred of them.
Proofing Colour for Printmaking
With relief and screen printing, colour is a moving target. Mix more ink than you think you need and keep a sample of the mixed batch on a scrap of the final paper, labelled with the recipe. Screen printers should check registration marks line up across every layer, and remember that ink darkens slightly as it dries. Linocut makers working a reduction print should proof each stage and photograph it, because once you carve away, there is no going back.
Also proof for drying and finishing: will the ink offset onto the sheet stacked above it? Does a laminate or varnish change the colour? Does a fold run through a face?
A Final Walk-Through Before You Commit
Lay the approved proof next to the file, the mock-up and the checklist. Confirm trim, bleed, colour mode, resolution, spelling, folding and stock. Sign and date a physical copy and keep it — it is your reference if anything goes wrong at the printer.
Then sleep on it. A night's distance reveals things an afternoon's urgency hides. When you come back and it still looks right, you can send it to print with confidence, knowing the only surprises left are the good ones.
