Documentdocs/print/PRINT-SPECS.md

SurveyStream — print specifications

1. The one thing to read first

SVG and CSS have no CMYK. Every file in this folder is RGB. They are layout and position masters — exact to the millimetre — not colour-managed press files. Sending an SVG straight to a printer hands your brand colour to an uncontrolled RGB→CMYK conversion at their end.

The correct workflow:

1. Use these files as the geometry and typography master. Place them in InDesign or open in Illustrator.
2. Re-apply colour from the swatch table in §4 as CMYK or spot swatches.
3. Outline all live text, or supply the fonts (all three are OFL and embeddable).
4. Export PDF/X-4 (or X-1a if the printer asks) with the bleed box included.

2. Geometry

All SVG user units are millimetres — width="91mm" viewBox="0 0 91 61" — so the files open at true size in Illustrator, InDesign and Chrome with no scaling step.

The card is 85 × 55 mm (EU standard). The brief also mentions the 3.5 × 2 in US card: that is 88.9 × 50.8 mm, a different aspect ratio (1.75 vs 1.545). It is not a scale of the same artwork — the safe area gets 4.2 mm shorter and the contact block has to be re-set. Ask which market ships first rather than assuming one converts.

Bleed is only needed where ink crosses the trim

• Card front — full-bleed dark field. Bleed required.
• Card back — the accent strip runs off the bottom edge. Bleed required.
• Letterhead / invoice — the sheet is otherwise unprinted paper. Only the accent rule crosses the right trim edge, and it ends at a real 24 % tint rather than fading to nothing, precisely so that the bleed is doing something. If you drop the rule’s bleed, drop the 3 mm with it.

3. Guides

Every *-guides.svg carries a <g id="guides" data-print="false"> layer: magenta dashed = bleed, solid grey = trim, cyan dashed = safe, plus corner crop marks offset 1 mm into the bleed with a 4 mm arm.

Delete that group before generating the press PDF. The -guides files are for review; the plain files are the artwork.

4. Colour

Naive conversions below are what a mathematical RGB→CMYK gives. They are a starting point and, for the darks, actively wrong — read the notes column.

Rich black for the card front

Do not print the dark field as the naive build. Use a controlled rich black:

C70  M50  Y40  K100     total area coverage 260 %

Inside GRACoL’s 320 % limit, dense enough to look black next to the reversed mark, and it holds detail in reversed type. A flat K100 alone looks washed grey across an area this large.

5. The colour decision you need to make

The brief specifies #0F172A for the card front. Measured against the Pantone solid coated set, its nearest match is 289 C at ΔE 5.8 — no usable spot equivalent, so on a two-ink job it would have to run four-colour, and a large flat dark field in process is exactly where registration shift and banding show.

Brand Deepwater #08222E matches PMS 5395 C at ΔE 1.7.

Both are supplied: business-card-front.svg uses the specified slate, business-card-front-deepwater.svg uses Deepwater. Recommendation: print Deepwater and keep the slate as the screen value, or accept four-colour on the front.

The two-ink stationery spec

• Spot 1 — PMS 5395 C. Card front field, wordmark, all body setting.
• Spot 2 — PMS 3125 C. The mark, the accent strip, the letterhead rule.

Consequence for the gradients. The card’s accent strip and the letterhead rule are Current→Stream→Pulse gradients. Pulse has no spot and is out of CMYK gamut, so on a two-ink job those become a tint ramp of Spot 2 — 100 % → 40 % — rather than a hue shift. That reads as intended; it just is not the same gradient. Decide this before artwork goes out, not at proofing.

Likewise the front’s glow: on a two-ink job it becomes a 20 % tint halo of Spot 2, not a blur.

6. Production minimums

7. Typography

All three faces are SIL OFL 1.1 — embedding and outlining are both permitted. The SVGs contain live text, which is deliberate so the contact details stay editable. Outline it or supply the fonts before the press file goes out.

8. Stock and finishing

Not specified in the brief; these are the recommendations that suit the artwork:

• Card: 400–450 gsm, matt laminate both sides. The dark field shows every fingerprint on gloss. Soft-touch laminate suits the palette but will darken the field further — proof it.
• Consider spot UV on the mark only, on the front. The interlock accent is the natural place for it, and it is the one flourish the design supports.
• Letterhead: 100–120 gsm uncoated. Dark teals shift green on uncoated — proof Spot 1 on the actual stock before signing off.
• Edge painting in Spot 2 is possible at 450 gsm and would carry the accent-strip idea onto the card’s edge. Expensive; mention it only if the budget is real.

9. Files