Sardinian Knotted Embroidery cover proof

The other day the proofs arrived from the printer for me to check. There were two sets. One set is known as dyelines, and they’re for general checking, and to make sure all the pages are in the correct order. The second set is the colour proofs. The colour is checked on these proofs, and the printers use them as a guide for matching their colour to, on the press.

Most people have never seen a proof before, because it just isn’t really part of every day life! This is what the proof of the cover for Sardinian Knotted Embroidery looks like.

In the top left-hand corner there’s some writing. That identifies the job, and probably says a whole lot of other things, but I wouldn’t know what, because much of it is in Chinese. At the middle of each side (including top and bottom) are the registration marks, which look like a circle with a cross through them.

When printing with plates, they use one plate for each ink, of which there are usually four: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK – written in shorthand as CMYK. The registration marks are on each plate, and by matching these up, they can check that all the plates properly align. If they didn’t, one colour might print slightly out of registration, and the whole thing wouldn’t look quite right.
Near the corners are the crop marks, which tell the printers where the cover should be trimmed to. You can see that the images extend well past the crop marks. This is called “bleed” and it is there so that if the trimming is a little off, you don’t end up with a white unprinted bit down the sides. Graphic designers usually use about 4-5mm of bleed, though why, I don’t know, because these days the trimming is so precise it really isn’t necessary to use so much. I would think that these days 2-3mm would suffice. I guess it is a throwback to past times when the whole process wasn’t such a precision thing!

Lastly, there is the colour bar at the bottom. I’m talking from assumption here, because I don’t actually *know* how they use these. My assumption is that the printers also print this when they’re printing the book – it wasn’t on every page of the proofs, just some – and will use it to check that the printing press has the right mix of inks and therefore the colours match. If, for example, they found that when it was on the press it was printing with a bit too much magenta (looking too pink), they could reduce the amount of magenta ink being used, and therefore get the colours to match.

I’ve now checked all the proofs and signed off on them, and sent them back to the printers. This stage is my very last chance to make any changes. I made 9 small text changes – mostly finicky little things that only a graphic designer (like me) would pick up, and care about, but overall make the whole thing look better. If I don’t make them now, then the next chance to make changes is when all the books in the first print run have been sold, and I order a reprint.

In past times, it would have been very expensive to make changes at this stage, because new plates would have to be made for each of the changes. Depending on whether the changes were in colour or not, it could be just one plate (black) or all four of them (CMYK). However, now that the proofing process is digital, the plates are made AFTER proofing, so it isn’t the huge, expensive, big deal that it used to be.

The printer now passes the book “up the line” from the offices to the factory for actual printing. Another step closer.

The next time I see anything of this book will be when the advance copies arrive on my doorstep by courier. And that will be another exciting day.