An illustrated woman in a wide white hat and round yellow sunglasses fills an orange hexagon on the cover of How to sell art online, the free handbook creativehub offers artists who want to sell their work on the web. creativehub is the online selling platform of theprintspace, the fine art and photographic print lab on Kingsland Road in Shoreditch, and the guide pairs practical chapters with bold commissioned artwork. Every chapter starts with a giant black numeral beside a full bleed image: a head filled with tangled cables, a row of turquoise sports cars rendered by Christopher Labrooy. We print it in A5 with a perfect bound spine, a 300gsm uncoated cover under matt lamination and 120gsm uncoated text, and we have printed it edition after edition for Zach, their head of marketing, and designer Pete. Here are the questions other brands ask us, answered with this guide.
Why print a free guide on uncoated paper?
Inside, 120gsm uncoated stock suits a handbook: matt, glare free and pleasant to write on. The artwork reproduces softer than it would on silk, and that suits a guide that wants to feel like a book you keep rather than a brochure you skim. Outside, a 300gsm uncoated board under matt lamination guards the illustration against scuffs once copies start travelling. For the updated edition both stocks were FSC certified, so the paper traces back to responsibly managed forests. Every reprint has used the same pairing, and when Zach briefed a later creativehub title he simply asked for the "same format and paper spec as last time".
How do you carry an image from the inside cover onto page one?
Artwork on this guide begins inside the front cover and runs on to the first text page, which is harder than it looks. Perfect binding fixes the first and last text pages to the cover along a narrow hinge strip, about 6 to 7mm wide, so the image has to begin that far in from the spine on page one or its two halves never meet. Mike's note on the updated edition was candid: we were "having a little trouble getting the image to line up from the inside front cover to the first text page again when we factor in the 7mm hinge". Pete supplied the cover as outlined InDesign files, our pre press team realigned it, and the picture now flows over the join. If your design crosses that hinge, our page on how to create your cover file shows where the glue lands.
What should you check on a proof, and what can you ignore?
On the first proof Zach reported that every L and I looked bold, then realised it was his PDF viewer, which corrected itself once he zoomed in. The same careful read caught something real: an artist credit missing from an inside cover page, where it had slipped behind an image. Pete restored it and the files went to press. Check names, credits and captions with care, and ask us about anything that looks odd on screen before you rework a file.
What changes when a guide goes into another edition?
The first edition carried a year in its title. When creativehub came back for more, Pete's only changes were dropping the year and swapping one image, and we removed pages 1, 2, 83 and 84 from his file, as we had the first time. The updated edition grew to 104 pages including the cover. Later a chapter was cut and the guide shrank to 100, and Zach asked whether the spine and cover template would need redoing. Mike's answer was no: "we're still at a 7mm spine please for both the 96 and 100 page versions". Spine width moves in steps, so a four page change often leaves your cover untouched.
How fast can a reprint reach Shoreditch?
Speed has been a habit on this job. The first edition was promised for a Tuesday and was on a van on Monday morning, and Zach wrote that afternoon to say the books were "looking awesome". On the updated edition our despatch team delivered before Mike had even been told the books were finished. For the latest reprint we started printing overnight, before payment had even cleared, and the boxes reached Shoreditch in a booked lunchtime slot.
"Cheers once again guys, you have delivered a great service!"
Zach, head of marketing, theprintspace
For another guide printed on these exact papers, see the A6 creative guides we made for new architecture students, and explore formats on our brochure printing page. Planning a guide your customers will keep on the desk? Share your page count and inside cover artwork with us and we will check the hinge before anything is printed.
PaperbacksA5, 44 pages, perfect bound£246for 100
Product cataloguesA5, 28 pages, stapled£166for 100