Print Specs: What are Bleed and Crop Marks?.

Bleed: Bleed is a very important element that must be taken into consideration when creating any printed piece. Bleed refers to any artwork where color is going to the edge of the page. You must provide additional color or image outside the cut area. When items are cut down, they are in stacks of a 100 or more. The paper can shift during cutting, therefore there must be extra image that can be cut off. This is done to ensure that there is no white paper showing around the edge of a printed piece.

Crop Marks: Crop marks refer to little ticks that show the person cutting down each sheet where to cut. See sample below. Note: Red lines are not a part of the print layout.