How to Prepare Dieline for Prepress & Printing

Preparing dielines for prepress & printing is important to ensure efficacy and accuracy throughout the printing process. They provide detailed outlines of the packaging manufactured according to the product’s dimensions. The layout aligns greatly with the right placement of the logo, artwork design, and other important elements.

This minimizes the materials wastage and saves the production time. The dieline preparation is quite cost-efficient and maintains the quality of custom-printed packaging. The precision allows the finishing methods to execute efficiently throughout the printing procedure.

This also helps the brand earn customer satisfaction by ensuring quality printing and finishing consistency. To learn more about it, let’s have a look at the article below: 

What is Dieline?

A dieline is a detailed packaging design layout, created according to the product’s shape and dimensions. It holds the right placement of the logo, artwork design, text, and other elements to enhance the product’s presentation. Dielines are usually created during the prepress process using graphic designing software to ensure the proper formatting for printing and finishing purposes.

Dielines keep the design properly aligned and help in the printing of various packaging materials including brochures, labels, stickers, boxes, etc. They ensure quality, accuracy, efficiency, and consistency among the custom-printed packaging materials.

Requirement to Prepare a Dieline

Before preparing dielines for prepress & printing, there are a few things you should consider:

Make Sure the Size is Accurate

The first and the most important thing is the estimation of the packaging size. The packaging should not be too big that the product keeps on moving inside it or it should not be small that does not allow the product to sit comfortably inside the packaging.

Dielines are used for printing on packaging materials that perfectly fulfill the industry standards. Avoid large-size product packaging as it could become problematic in the die-cutting process.

Use the Right Paper Stock According to the Weight of the Product

Choose the paper stock according to the product’s weight. The heavy products may need thick stock like corrugated cardboard to efficiently protect the products inside the packaging. While the medium-sized products may go well with the paperboard or cardboard. Kraft paper is considered a great option for lightweight products.

Understand the Purpose of your Packaging

Here comes the time to understand the purpose of packaging before preparing dieline for prepress & printing. This is the thing that has a great impact on how the packaging would look on the retail store shelves or online platforms.

E-commerce businesses prefer to invest in corrugated cardboard or paperboard to keep their products protected during tough shipping procedures. But at the same time, the packaging should offer an incredible unboxing experience to impress the target audience. Retail businesses prefer to have folding cartons or rigid boxes to hold lightweight products. This would lead to the production of dielines with fewer flaps. 

Finalize the Dieline Template

Before going into the dieline preparation process, the brands need to look into the pre-made dieline templates. This would save them from great hassle and also remain cost-efficient while ensuring the structural design of your product packaging. The pre-made dieline templates could be amended using Adobe Illustrator for the right placement of the logo, artwork design, and color contrast.

The dielines usually hold distinct colored lines, used to instruct the die-cutting machine. These are positioned while considering your artwork design to fulfill the industry standards. Following are the different types of colored lines to make you perfectly understand its meaning:

Cutting Lines

Cutting lines are the most important part of the dieline and they are marked with black color. They let the manufacturers understand where they should cut the dieline while producing the final product packaging.

Crease Lines

Crease lines are also called fold lines. They are highlighted using the red color to let you know where to fold the packaging. The dotted red lines ensure easy construction of the packaging material after the completion of the printing and finishing process.

Bleed Lines

Bleed lines are the green lines that efficiently outline the packaging design. The lines are constructed to separate the extra space from the important design elements to construct the product packaging just the way it was planned on the digital file.

Safe Zone

The safe zone is shown using the green dotted lines that ensure the area is guaranteed to be seen on custom-printed packaging. This aligns the artwork design and places it accurately on the finished product packaging.

Glue Tabs

The glue tabs are indicated using the green crisscrosses. These are placed in the product packaging to specify the glue areas for the construction of product packaging.

Why Does Dieline Matter in Packaging?

Dieline in print and packaging design holds great significance in defining the structural integrity of the product packaging. It specifies the shape, style, size, and layout to efficiently protect the products during the shipping or storage procedures. It offers the brand packaging consistency and maintains the same feel to enhance the product’s reputation in the market.

Dielines help the brand achieve precision in artwork design and text elements while minimizing the ratio of misprints or errors. They give customers an amazing experience with fully functional yet visually appealing product packaging. These are cost-efficient and boost the brand’s success chances in the competitive marketplace.

Prepress & Artwork Design Workflow

Prepress is a series of steps that covers all the printing procedures between the design layout and the final printed product packaging. Following are the guidelines you should follow to ensure the accuracy and accuracy of the dielines designs:

• Do not make alterations to the dieline template.
• All the artwork files should be formatted in CMYK or PMS colorspace.
• The lines should be more than 0.25pt. in thickness to keep the artwork design within the bleed lines.
• All the images should be at least 300 DPI in resolution to avoid any type of blurring.
• All the text objects should be outlined properly to avoid missing fonts.

What is Prepress in packaging?

Prepress in packaging is important to ensure that the digital artwork design is accurately prepared for the printing procedures. This results in consistent, accurate, and high-quality printed packaging materials. The process demands great technical expertise, quality checks, and attention to every minute detail to achieve the best output in the final printing stage.

Artwork Design Guidelines

Artwork design guidelines ensure the preparation of the digital design file for printing purposes. You can check out the artwork design guidelines of Box Agency for a clear understanding. Following is a set of some guidelines for you to follow:

• The images should have a high resolution of 300 DPI to avoid any type of blurring.
• Use CMYK or PMS color scheme for quality color production in printing.
• Do not go beyond the bleed lines and outline the fonts to maintain the integrity of the structural design.
• Keep the design file in print-ready formats. PDF is usually preferred as it preserves the design layout with quality images and outlined fonts.
• Always review the artwork design before sending it for printing. This helps you avoid errors in colors, text, and overall design.

Select the Right Printing Method for your Dieline 

The selection of the right printing method for your dieline holds consideration for various factors including the budget, print quality, production volume, and project timeline. The hiring of a leading packaging manufacturer could help you specify your requirements and make an appropriate decision regarding the printing method for your dieline.

Every printing method has its criteria of application, advantages, and disadvantages. To understand it well, have a look at the printing methods mentioned below:

1: Offset Printing

Offset printing is best for complex designs and high-volume productions. It offers high-quality design with vibrant color accuracy and amazing finishing. This is quite effective for bulk orders but expensive for small productions. This requires time for processing and does not go well for the quick prints.

2: Digital Printing

Digital printing is best for short runs and allows you to make changes at the last moment. They are cost-effective for small orders and hold quite a fast turnaround time for customization. The printing quality is not as good as offset printing.

3: Flexographic Printing

Flexographic printing is best for the printing of flexible packaging, labels, stickers, and high-volume productions. They are cost-effective for large orders and suitable for printing on large films, rolls, or foils. They do not give accurate results for intricate designs.

4: Gravure Printing

Gravure printing is best for high-volume production of food packaging, labels, and other decorative elements. It offers color consistency and image accuracy with high-quality printing. This is quite an expensive matter and requires a great amount of time for setup.

5: Screen Printing

Screen printing is mostly used for the printing of uneven surfaces or limited-edition printing. It uses vibrant colors and special finishing methods on glass, plastics, and metals. This is not considered perfect for fine detailing and holds great cost of setup for small orders.

Start the Production

Once the dieline preparation is done, it’s time to start the production process. The proofing is performed to check for any type of errors or discrepancies before getting into the production process. The prepress check indicates the inconsistencies and ensures that the dieline files are ready for printing. This also includes the verification of image resolution, font outlines, line marking, and other technical aspects for printing purposes.

The finalization of the artwork led to the plate-making procedure that replicates the design elements and structural features for the perfect packaging. The final printing smoothly showcases the design accuracy, high material quality, and fulfillment of industry standards.