What is bleed, and why does your designer keep asking for 3mm?

Print is cut by machine, thousands of sheets an hour, and every cut lands within about a millimetre of its target. Bleed is the allowance that absorbs that millimetre.

The problem it solves

Design a box lid with a green background that stops exactly at the trim line. If the cut lands 0.5mm outside your artwork, your box now has a white sliver along one edge — on every unit in the run.

The fix

Extend the background 3mm past the trim on every side. Now the cut can land anywhere inside that zone and the edge is still solid green.

The other side: safe zone

The same logic protects content inside the trim: keep text and logos at least 3mm in from the edge, or a slightly-off cut shaves your headline.

• Bleed: background extends 3mm out
• Safe zone: important content stays 3mm in
• Dielines: our studio exports them with both zones marked

Download any dieline from the YesPrint studio and the bleed is already drawn for you.