Need to know panel sizes for brochures

[msweeney]

I work in pre-press, handling incoming digital ready jobs and designing for a printing company. We have standard templates we follow for where the fold lines fall on all our brochures (double parallel, gate, roll, tri-fold, etc). We were given these templates by the person that did all of our cutting and folding who has since left the company. I have done some searching on-line and found that we are similar if not the same as everything I can find out there. We were recently asked by production to change all of our templates. They would like the front panel to be a little bit wider than the back panel which we have always had be the same. This way they never have to worry about the back panel sticking out farther than the front panel. Production says they really struggle with this, especially with brochures that have color breaks on the folds.

My question is, does anyone else do this on their brochures? I understand that on some pieces, depending on the color breaks and stock, some adjustments may need to be made. We send some of our work to another facility to be printed and when I ran this by them they thought it was a bad idea to change our standard. They talked about over trimming and under trimming solving a lot of the problem with color breaks, etc. Does anyone have any suggestions or thoughts about this problem? Before I go through the work of changing our "standard". I just want to make sure it is change for the better!

Thanks
Missy

 

[Craig]

Missy,
Here are the measurements we use for letter folded brochures. We ALWAYS have the inside fold shorter, you will eliminate "dog ears" as well.

8.5” x 11”
Inside Short Fold = 3.625”
Main Back Panel = 3.6875”
Front Panel = 3.6875”

Good luck!

 

[msweeney]

Thank you for your response. We setup our panels the same way, with the front and back panels being the same size and the inside panel being shorter. Have you ever heard of a printer wanting the front panel bigger than the back panel?
One other question... lets say you have full color on the front panel and a white back panel. If the folder can't get the fold right on the color break, is it the acceptable to have a bit of color wrap around from the front panel to the back panel and if so how much?

 

[oxburger]

The folder should be able to hit it dead on. If not, they're not worth their weight in salt. But I'd say an acceptable amount of the wrap around would be no more than 1/16".

Also, to answer your fold question above, we do roll folds with all subsequent inside panels reduced 1/16" as you go (depending on how many panels there are)

 

[Craig]

Agree with oxburger, the folder should not be moving. The cutter operator may not have been careful, that will lead to "movement" with the line. With a roll fold I can see that panels being reduced, but not with a letter fold, I would think twice about changing your templates. If it ain't broke, don't fix it! Maybe "production" needs to go to folder school.

 

[jackson3908]

Hi,

I read this in one of the article.
8 ½ x 11 – This is your standard paper size, similar to what you put in your own printer. The weight of the brochure will depend on the stock that you select, but you can get an idea of this size by folding a regular piece of paper three or four times. We recommend this size for those that do not have a lot of information to get across, or for those that want to save on mailing costs.
8 ½ x 14 – This size is a bit bigger, but still very economical for mailing. This is most commonly used for four fold brochures and gives you a little more space to get your message across.