Full-bleed design, trim, and safety margin

If your design should extend to the edge of the packaging, we need 2 cm of extra artwork all around beyond what will be visible in the end. And anything that absolutely must not be cut off should have at least 5 mm of space from the edge.

That might sound like a small detail, but it’s the most common reason we have to ask customers for clarification. So here’s a calm explanation of why this is important.

Why even have bleed?

A box is printed afterward, and there can be slight shifts in the millimeter range—one or two millimeters, sometimes one way, sometimes the other. This is technically unavoidable.

If your colored background ends exactly at the cut edge, such a deviation will create a thin white line. That looks like a mistake, even though everything was within tolerance. That’s why you simply extend the color 2 cm beyond the final edge. This extra area is trimmed off and no one ever sees it—but it ensures the edge looks clean.

And the safety margin?

This is the same tolerance, just thought of the other way around. Anything placed too close to the edge can get cut off during trimming. A logo with half a letter missing, or a phone number with the last digit gone.

So keep at least 5 mm distance from the edge for anything important. For text and contact details, a bit more is better. Visually, it doesn’t hurt—in fact, a little breathing room at the edge usually looks calmer.

If you’re not working with full bleed at all

Then you don’t need to worry about bleed. A logo centered on brown kraft cardboard, with the rest of the box left as is—there’s no edge where anything could shift. By the way, this is also the cheaper option because less ink is printed.

If you’re unsure whether your file meets these requirements, send it to us. We’ll check it before printing and get back to you if something doesn’t fit. Better to ask one question too many than to have a whole pallet with cut-off logos.