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Stitching booklets in an oblong or landscape format can be an eye-catching design style. This unusual format is ideal for coupon books, maps, product brochures and a host of other products. Because of their layout and formatting needs, however, these pieces require particular design considerations. Here are a few tips to consider when planning an oblong piece:
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| Designing oblong stitched products for two-up production can increase efficiency and deliver a higher quality product. |
What to Avoid: If Possible
The spines of landscape books are shorter than the spine-to-face measurement, which can make them difficult to produce. Here’s why: when the spine is shorter than the pages are long, the signature is unbalanced and can shift during trimming. This movement, however slight, can cause variations in the final trim. Even when small, this variation can result in shoddy and unprofessional looking products. This can be magnified by borders and other artwork close to the trim, so consider border designs that include full bleeds or leave out borders entirely to minimize this risk.
Run Multiple up
One way to overcome the production issues of oblong books is to run them 2-up. Doing so will increase the length of the spine when the book is in the trimmer, making the ratio of spine length to book width more square and resulting in greater stability. Most binderies have trimmers that are equipped with a 4th or 5th knife, allowing for a fully automated process. So, not only will an oblong, 2-up project gain production efficiencies, but it will look better as well.
Customers often inquire about 3-up stitching. Some binderies have trimming units with yet another set of knives (a 6th and 7th), but in general this is not common practice. This request often relates to miniature coupon book projects. A miniature spine should be considered anything from 1.0 to 3.5 inches. In these cases, we recommended moving the production run to a 4-up block, applying a single stitch and moving the project offline for cutting.
Super-sized
Oblong oversized books have design concerns to watch out for as well. If the book is too big, production times can escalate by as much as 200%. Here’s a general guideline: any spine to face dimension (the drop) longer than a final trim size of 12" will need to be run on a semi-automatic machine. Keep in mind that most semi-automatic stitchers do not have trimming units, so the final trims will be made offline.
The Rickard Advantage
Rickard Bindery is uniquely equipped to handle stitching projects with narrow backbones, oblong or otherwise. Out small-format stitching capabilities can place stitches as close as 1 3/4” center-to-center, allowing you to efficiently produce a wider range of projects. And our oversized stitcher can handle drops as great as 19 inches.
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