TIP: Borders Borders Borders

Jessie the border collie says when you’re uploading images to Redbubble please don’t add borders. With most products there is some border or mounting added during production and the double border can look a bit odd. For some other products like greeting cards it’s necessary to trim a small amount of the card to get a full bleed result. We don’t trim the spine, so the images can end up looking unbalanced also.

When images are included in super secret, yet to be released products you’re not going to want existing borders on the images either ! Trust Jessie – leave borders to the dogs.

WHAT an exceptionally gorgeous dog ;)

Not as hot as my goldie but, yeah pretty nice and it had to be a border collie !

I can see a cutest dogs contest some day…..

BTW good advice on the borders (collie or otherwise)

If you only want your artwork to seen as a card it’s a shame that the border has to go. A lot of people out there in Bubbleland actually like borders.

It seems to me that some border can be left, simple, just design it so that it is not so obvious when cropped. I suspect that your advice to eliminate borders is to lessen the complaints about the cropping issues.

The dog is pretty cute I would like to add. :-)

when the inside border along the spine is left untouched and we’re trimming a bit off the other side with the bleed, they look shonky. cutting the bleed is necessary or else you get all kinds of crazy things happening at the edges. you can leave the borders in, but your buyers will think twice before purchasing another of your cards. yes, borders look pretty and they can frame an image nicely, but it’s beyond our control how much of them we can leave in. think of the product at the end of the process.

Hop, I can understand that, but try not to look at a border as being a border. What if it was a stripe on a flag for instance or the whole image was an abstract of rectangles. The overall image is going to be compromised.

PS I’ve only sold two cards and both had borders…the border cropping didn’t compromise the overall look.

i guess you just have to take it into consideration when you put an image together for a card. i’ve seen the card cropping process in action and the folks down at the printer will try and accommodate for the borders to the best of their ability, but sometimes it doesn’t look so great. it’s just something to be aware of rather than hitting the panic button over. it’s an area for improvement and that’s something we’re aware of in the office. it’s not like we’re sitting around thinking ‘how can we make this as difficult for people as possible?’, although that might be amusing in a Machiavellian sense for about two seconds, it defeats the purpose of what this is all about.

I really do understand the problems that you guys are having, and I certainly don’t think you are all trying to make life hard for the members of RB (sorry if you took it that way) On the contrary, you guys do a great job and it’s very much appreciated as all the work done makes this a great art site.

I’m trying to point out that not all borders are bad and the feeling that I have looking at the posts out there is that there is panic out there with members trying to re-do their images to eliminate borders. I know someone, for example, who is unable to resize an image to fit a card without the back or white edges on the side. This person only uploads images for cards…not wall art. Sometimes a border or frame has to be included. I guess the post above saying, no borders, has been taken that this is a hard rule and there is no flexibility.

That is the trouble with emails and posts…not the same as having a conversation on the phone…bugger…I’m really not trying to be difficult :-)

assuming this topic is applying to the card issue only? right? In the preview is’nt that what the finished product will look like??

Yep, there were some bugs with the card preview previously, but it’s a good indication of what you’ll get now.

So this is about the cards and for the prints a border is ok?

oh and was wondering i.e one of mine found here the boarder is actually part of the image .. umm
would like to keep my images I create this way (for prints) and I upload big res anyway .. any suggestions.. on how to upload or how to compensate for the 1mm cut off thing?? Thank you

I too am keen to find out whether the border is ok for prints…I’m a little bit worried as most of my work that I’ve put on has a small border…stupid me! Should have read into this a bit more….Will have to have a look for this card preview thingy…Rob.

I use the border for my copyright in your border you put my name which is the name I use here but that is not the copyright to my work my name is the copyright, so adding a border for my prints are more then just that line around my work. I also use it for other writings that I cannot add to the border you put on my prints. What if we had more control over what was printed on your border? Like the name some of your artist use here is not a real name that is the copyright to there work. Ok (© 2007 Kenneth Fugate) is the right copyright to my work not stormphotonet.

Like the name some of your artist use here is not a real name that is the copyright to there work. Ok (© 2007 Kenneth Fugate) is the right copyright to my work not stormphotonet.

Edit your profile and turn on the “Always show my real name” option instead of the “Always show my user name” option, and it’ll show your actual name, rather than your nickname.

Thanks Martin now if I could get the year and copyright on there

So Sorry don’t mean to be a nag or anything… I still need clarification…

Is this border okay? as it is part of my creation here.

Yes and I need to know are the borders ok on prints if I look at them on prints there are ok just not for cards, is this right?

Personally I’d say no borders on anything, I think the double border thing looks strange on nearly all the products. If the border is very much apart of the image (like a polaroid or something similar) then that’s different, just don’t make it too thin and you’ll get around the issues with cards (thick border means a small amount of bleed/trim will still look ok)

Would it not be possible to offer options for cards – full bleed or ‘fit in’ with borders? I’ve had to deselect the card option for some of my images as the crop spoils the picture. [e.g. ‘Hand dog’ and ‘World’] At the moment, the only options are ‘backing colour’ – white or black. Does this refer to the back of the card? Because there is no background on the front…

King & JoJo say “Thanks for the Tip” :)

I have a cropping issue with my paintings. Some of them I’d like to sell as cards but the length:width ratio of the canvas is all wrong so the cropping looks terrible. Is there anyway around this?

OK first time posting but now I finally understand the border issue … it wasn’t making sense to me until I tried posting a border LOL. Too bad, I really like the image with the border. I might just take my chances and do a version with the image slightly offset just for the card. So there is no consistent dimension for the trim for the bleed??? If it was reasonably consistent folks could know where reasonably close to center is?? Just a thought … Thanks folks!

The trimming is normally quite consistent, but with any mechanical process there is some movement and variation – A thin border makes things harder for us !