Quick answer: A standard Australian business card is 90 x 55mm. In Illustrator, create a 90 x 55mm artboard in millimetres with the Print profile, add 3mm bleed on all four sides (96 x 61mm including bleed), set the colour mode to CMYK, and export a print-ready PDF with crop marks and bleed.
Most print delays start in the artwork file, not on the press. A logo sitting too close to the trim, an RGB photo, a font that didn't embed: each one sends a file back to the designer and costs the job a day. Adobe Illustrator handles all of this well, as long as the document is set up for print from the first click.
This guide walks through that setup step by step, the way we'd explain it to a designer sending files to a trade printer for the first time. The worked example is a standard Australian 90 x 55mm business card, because it's small enough to show every setting clearly. The same settings apply to a Corflute® sign, a roll label or a 3-metre banner; only the size and the resolution change.
Mediapoint is a trade-only wide-format printer in Derrimut, Melbourne. Since 2006 we've printed signs, banners, labels and stickers for designers, print resellers and agencies Australia-wide — white-labelled and blind-shipped, so your clients only ever see your brand.
1. Create the document at trim size, with bleed
Go to File > New, choose the Print profile and set the units to millimetres. Enter the finished (trim) size: 90 x 55mm for an Australian business card. In the Bleed fields, enter 3mm on all four sides. Illustrator shows the bleed as a red line outside the artboard.
Under Advanced Options, set Colour Mode to CMYK and Raster Effects to High (300 ppi). Setting CMYK here, rather than converting at the end, means the colours you see while designing are colours the press can actually reproduce.
Build the artboard at the size the job will print rather than scaling up from an A4 layout. Some products have their own rules (rigid boards, for example, must be supplied at 100% size), so check the product's setup guide before you start: rigid boards, PVC banners, mesh banners, pull-up banners, roll labels and custom-shape stickers.
2. Run backgrounds into the bleed and keep a safe area
Any colour, image or shape that touches the edge of the design must run all the way out to the red bleed line. A trim can land a fraction of a millimetre either side of the cut line; bleed means there is still artwork there, so no white edge appears.
Text and logos need the opposite: keep them at least 3mm inside the trim. The quickest way is to draw a rectangle the size of the artboard, apply Object > Path > Offset Path at -3mm, then turn the result into guides with View > Guides > Make Guides. Everything important stays inside those guides. Our guide to bleed and crop marks explains why both rules exist.
3. Get the colour right
Build every swatch in CMYK. For brand colours that must match from job to job, use Pantone Solid Coated (C) swatches from Illustrator's swatch libraries. At Mediapoint, our colour profiles recognise Solid Coated Pantones and replace them with the closest match our process can print; CMYK values and other Pantone books print as supplied. A Pantone Bridge guide shows you that closest match before you commit. There's more in colour theory for print designers and our colour matching guide.
Keep small text in 100% black (0/0/0/100) so it prints crisp, rather than built from four inks that can sit fractionally out of register.
4. Check image resolution at final size
Place photos with File > Place and check them in the Links panel, which shows each image's effective resolution (PPI) at the size it has been scaled to. For small items viewed up close, such as a business card, aim for 300 PPI at final size. Large format is viewed from further away, so the target drops: our standard is 120 DPI at final print size for most banners, signs and displays. Our large format printing tips include a table of resolution by viewing distance.
Where you can, convert RGB photos to CMYK before placing them (in Photoshop, Edit > Convert to Profile), so any colour shift shows up now rather than on the printed job.
5. Outline fonts and check overprint
Before exporting, save a working copy, then select all text and choose Type > Create Outlines. Outlined text can't be swapped for a different font on another computer. Keep the live-text version for future edits.
Then turn on View > Overprint Preview. If an object vanishes or changes colour, it has been set to overprint in the Attributes panel. White objects set to overprint are the classic trap: they look fine on screen and disappear on press.
6. Export a print-ready PDF
Use File > Save As > Adobe PDF and choose the PDF/X-4 preset (PDF/X-1a also works). Under Marks and Bleeds, tick Use Document Bleed Settings so the 3mm bleed is included, and add trim marks only if the product's setup guide asks for them. If the file has more than one design, put each on its own artboard so they export as separate pages.
Send the PDF, not the native .ai file. The PDF locks fonts, images and colour in place, and it is what goes to print.
Pre-flight checklist
- Artboard at trim size, at 100% unless the product guide says otherwise
- 3mm bleed on all sides, with backgrounds running to the bleed line
- Text and logos at least 3mm inside the trim
- Document and images in CMYK; brand colours as Pantone Solid Coated
- Images at 300 PPI (small format) or around 120 DPI (large format) at final size
- Fonts outlined and overprint checked
- Exported as PDF/X-4 with document bleed
- PDF checked at 100% zoom before sending
For the problems we see most often, read 4 print file mistakes designers make. To see live trade pricing and upload files, open a trade account.
