Design Tips

An excellent design is the foundation of any good printing or marketing piece. It is essential to the success of the product.

To that end, UC Printing has a staff of talented designers who can take your creative ideas and turn them into imaginative and beautiful printed products.

Call us for a free consultation with our in-house design department when you’re ready to start your next communications project.

If you prefer, we also have many contacts in the art and design industry if you would like to hire an artist independently.

And, as always, we are more than happy to work with any artist, designer or graphics company. Artists can ftp their files to our secure site and we will gladly work with them on all the details.

Designing On Your Own

In the meantime, if you would like to design your own piece, please consider the following tips:

• It is best to use the industry standard in design software to produce a printed piece. Professional artists normally use Photoshop, Quark Express, Microsoft Publisher, Adobe InDesign Illustator and the entire suite of Adobe design products. If you are working on your own and desire a high-quality printed product, it's imperative to use these design tools.

• Art files and photographs should be created at the highest resolution possible, and vector images are preferred.

  That being said, it is always an option to produce your own design using a variety of other types of software and producing a high quality pdf for printing and copying purposes. When doing your own design please consider the following:

• Too much text is a turn-off.

• White space (around text and pictures) is always a good thing.

• It's a mistake to cram too much text and copy into a brochure or other type of printed piece.

• Use lots of pictures, and pictures with people in them are always preferred.

• Use a color wheel when designing your piece. Opposite colors can work well as can colors in the same family.

• Think outside the box. Unusual designs grab the eye.

• Excellent writing is essential. Keep your customers reading your copy by making it sparkle. Consider hiring a professional copywriter or editor.

• Work with grids or frames. Split your paper into frames and design within each one. For a 3-fold brochure, for example, split into three sections and design within each section.

• Type is King! There is a huge variety of fonts available. Don't be afraid to utilize unusual fonts, and pair them with another, simpler type of font.

• Use the design tools in your software program.

• Consider reverse type. It's a grabber.

Talk to one of our designers for additional help or tips before starting off on your own design. Another idea is to produce a rough layout / design and then give it to our artist.

Need help? Contact us at info.ucprinting@berkeley.edu or call (510) 594-7746.