Inner margins, Offset printer, Rebuilding to compensate

Question

My question pertains to the area of responsibility as a designer versus that of the offset printer's. I have a Taschen derrived design with somewhat narrow inner margins (1.2 cm inner, on a 21 x 26 book, with 1.1 outer and 1.5 bottom). Do I/must I be the one who is reponsible for ensuring the book block and all its finer adjustments allow those inner margins to effectively work and not see text/pages creep into the center crease, presumably by adjusting and tweaking those margins and in effect, the book's design (though, granted, I am definitely the one who defines it is 400 pages, hardback, rounded spine, and with hollow back to help it lay flat), OR is it more so the printer's technicians who take my design and make subtle and complex calculations and adjustments to ensure that the inner margins are given enough additional excess paper to bind and pages open properly, without excess arch or bunching, and effectively see my design work optimally and as intended? Do I need to be ready to tweak it all and have this highly complex layout redone in a manner that allows me to make those adjustments if called to do so?

I ask this now, after years of work, as I am faced with a need to determine whether to completely reset and redo this complicated, lengthy, and highly involved/designed architectural book in order to fix/respond to any problem with these inner margins that may arise in its otherwise aesthetically pleasing design, which may not work with the printer in the bound volume. Is it their purview to handle this?

I am in Taiwan, with very limited Chinese, to do this. Our partner printer lacks, for my taste, a sufficiently high-level of language expertise in English to convey these issues to me. A preliminary inquiry into this matter saw a request from them for a sample pdf with markings for cursory review – which led to a (for me with a German-minded approach), disconconcertingly simple "It's OK" response. I don't feel secure in this.

I'm weary of the common-sense proscription against having narrow margins to avoid potential issues. Yes, that's obvious. However, for various reasons, a still reasonably narrow margin can be an attractive feature within a well-designed layout if executed right. In my design, increasing the inner margin to compensate damages the overall aesthetic. Taschen pulls it off, and in the same format size, and as a hardback. However, a key difference in this model (their budget series), is that they're all ~100 pp., while mine is 400pp, thus affecting the mechanical action and drape (and therefore, text falling into crease).

Brad @ Roaring Mouse · Accepted Answer

Imposition issues are the printer's domain. They are expert (or should be) at calculating the proper amount of creep and bottling required. Chances are they aren't printing more than 16-page signatures, which for a bound book doesn't need much in the way of adjustment. This is definitely not your issue to calculate. As long as you have sufficient margins to accommodate the type of binding you are using (e.g. you wouldn't want too small an interior margin if you are perfect binding).

There are also new ways to deal with creep in imposition software that are better than simply adding creep (essentially pushing inward/ourward the page. Some newer software does it by ever so slightly squeezing or expanding the page horizontally. e.g. it might shrink a page 99.6% horizontally which you would never detect. This technique is particularly effective dealing with crossover on a centerspread of a signature.

James Gifford—NitroPress · Answer

The very short form of the answer is: discuss this with your printer. Not a printer, not some printing advice you find on line, but with the firm/person who will actually put your project on paper and bind it.

That said, most commercial printers, especially book printers, do NOT want designers to try and tweak and outguess their print setup and apply things like creep (the small increase in inside margin to compensate for folding) or do any kind of imposition at all. They want clean, flat pages that are identically formatted (at least, as to margins) all the way thorugh, so their RIP and setup will exactly match the print process, imposition, signature folding, gathering, binding etc.

I'm not sure any commercial printer should even ask a designer to apply these settings and compensations. But ask yours for a definitve answer. (And ask the next printer of the next project the same questions, in time and turn.)

Designers only need to worry about imposition, creep, trim limits etc. if they are printing the project in-house, and then it's still often a matter of leaving such details to a quality printer's driver/setup/booklet utility.

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