Graphic Designers--Help Me with My Table Tents

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m making table tents! I want to get tabs or slits die-cut on the bottom–like this, but I’m not sure how to mark the cuts when we send it to the printer. I’ve never done anything with die cutting before, so it’s all new to me. Can anyone give me some advice on how to do this?

Thanks!
ME

2

Mark the cuts with a dotted line or something and tell the printer that’s what it means. Preferably, make up a little 3d mockup of your tents and send it along to the printer so he will see what the finished product shoud look like.

3

Sometimes I will use a non-repro blue (sky blue) to mark where cuts go. I don’t know the technology that goes behind die cutting, but make sure you send native files and PDFs in case they want to change it. Also, what Guadere said about sending a mock-up along with the files, that should be enough.

4

If you are using a standard die and your printer does die-cuts in house then he can probably give you a template for InDesign or Quark. If he farms it out, he can probably get it for you. Or at least give you measurements.

If it’s a custom die, mark it up as Gaudere suggests.

5

Ask your printer if s/he already has a die for what you want. Getting a die made may be outisde your budget.

Ask your printer if s/he has other options than die cutting to achieve the same effect (they may have made tents similar to this in the past and can advise you of options and what they cost).

Generally, dotted lines on artwork indicate a fold while solid marks indicate crops or where to cut.

I don’t know how much experience you have in setting up stuff for printers, so it would be a good idea to run your thoughts past the printer before you get too far into the project. Will there be bleed? How many are you having done? Will they be 4-color, spot colors or black and white?

I’d be happy to answer questions if you have others.

Good luck!

6

Thanks for all the great ideas!

I talked to our printer this morning, and they don’t do die cuts, but they can send them out to someone else. They have done table tents before, but they didn’t cut them (the bottoms were taped together with double-sided tape), so we’re kind of starting from scratch. Using blue lines sounds good, and I’ll give them a sample so there won’t be any confusion. I’m thinking about doing slits instead of trying to do a shaped tab–it’s simpler, and it should be cheaper.