Gutter Bleed Design

There are many spreads with the same full page left hand background texture art that will need to bleed into the gutter.

Gutter bleed design.

Scroll and then click bleed and slug to expand the panel. I am deep into the design of a wiro bound reference book that is over 400 pages. The dotted green line represents gutter. I am creating it in sections to eventually gather the section files into an indesign book.

Today let s look a little deeper at this. This is a visual reference to stop you from crowding the finished edge the solid red line with text and any graphics that don t require bleed. And for some book layouts properly applying bleed settings can be the difference between professional design and not. For example if you are designing a postcard with an image you want to cover the entire background you would need the image to extend beyond the edge of your design by 125 inches typical bleed size.

A full bleed describes when a project has been designed with an image or images that touches the cut edge on all four sides. The example below shows the appropriate use of gutter for the text along the top left and bottom edges of the design. Set the same bleed on all sides or click the chain icon to set different values for the top bottom inside and outside settings. Spreads can be very difficult to design for when producing perfect bound books or hard cover books due to the gutter.

We touched on full bleed printing last week when we looked at making a print ready pdf. They all have the same sets of master pages. If spreads are very important to the overall look and feel of your book we recommend binding types that lay flat such as saddle stitched booklets spiral bound booklets or wire o booklets.