How to Design for Margins and Gutters in Printing

Continuing on from our discussion, "What Does "Bleed" Mean in Printing", let’s jump into margins and gutters next. Like bleed, these terms have definitions specific to the world of professional printing. By gaining a solid understanding of what they are and how they can impact your final printing, you can help ensure the print design process goes off without a hitch.

What Are Margins and Gutters?

Both terms refer to unused areas of a print design, AKA negative space. They’re both also important for ensuring the information contained within your design ultimately prints in the way you intended. Between the two terms, margins are more straight forward. They can be defined as the space between the design and the edge of the printed page.

On the other hand, the term gutter is used to refer to several types of vertical space between different print elements. For example:

• When a single sheet contains multiple copies of a printing that will ultimately be cut apart, the space in between each copy is called the gutter. You can check out our previous article for an illustration of this type of gutter.
• In publications, gutter can also be used to refer to the space between two facing pages.

When there are columns of text or images in your design, the space between the columns can also be called a gutter.

Are there Standards for Setting Margins and Gutters?

Unlike with bleed, there isn’t a single industry standard for margin or gutter dimensions. They can be impacted by the amount of content in your design, the aesthetic approach you want to take, or how your print publication will be bound. However, it is a general rule that good designers think of negative space as an integral part of the design itself. In other words, don’t let your margins and gutters become an afterthought!

Designing with Bleed, Margins, and Gutters in Mind

Now, what to do if your design includes elements that need to run right up to the edge of the page, requiring a bleed? If margins and gutters are meant to be negative space, then do they just stop mattering if you’re using bleed? Not exactly.

As you can see in the illustration below, when a bleed is used, print elements will extend into the margins and up to the trim edges. However, all the critical information remains within the safe area delineated by the margins. The margins can still be thought of as essentially blank in this design, since no part of the text, logo, or the photo’s central figures to extend into them.

Tools and Software to Help with Margin and Gutter Alignment 

Accurate vertical and horizontal measurements are most important when aligning your gutters and margins. These days, most quality design programs offer some combination of rulers, guidelines, and resizing tools to get the job done. If you’re looking for a good program to design your print project in, some of the most popular options include:

• Adobe InDesign
• Adobe Illustrator
• Adobe Photoshop

Common Mistakes to Avoid

As we touched on above, the biggest mistake to watch for around margins and gutters is letting critical information drift into them as you’re refining your design. To avoid this mistake, work with your guidelines on, so you know exactly where your margins and gutters are at all times.

For more advice on what to watch for when working with bleed, margins, and gutters, check out our article discussing common print design mistakes. And of course, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at Wallace Carlson if you need assistance with getting your design print ready. We can help you ensure all your measurements are right, your image quality is sound, and that your final product is everything you want it to be.