Design For Print: Formats_

Formats -

The information below has been extracted from:

The Production Manual: A Graphic Design Handbook: A Graphic Design Handbook

 By Gavin Ambrose, Paul Harris

ISO: 

The benefits of standardising paper sizes have been recognised for centuries and its practice has a history that is traced all the way back to 14th century Italy, The ISO system is based around a height to width ratio of the square room of 2. this means that each paper size differs from the next or previous by a factor of 2 or 0.5. 

The ISO standard provides provides a range of complimentary paper sizes in order to cater for the most frequently used printing needs

As shown in the tables above. Normally A sizes are used for printing everything from posters, technical drawings to magazines newspapers, postcard whereas B sizes are normally used for printing Books. And C sizes are used for envelopes that will then hold the A sizes 

RA & SRA Series

These two series of paper sizes are also based on the ISO standard and are sizes used by printers that are slightly larger than the A series, this is to provide for grip, trim and bleed - Producing an A1 full bleed poster, the design must be printed on an SRA1 sheet which is bigger to allow for trimming to the final size. 

Book and Poster sizes:

Books and posters are generally produced in the standard formats - this provides a range of different sizes in which the designer can choose from.

Standard Book Sizes:

Books can come in a wide range of standard sizes providing a range of different formats to handle different types of imagery and typographic content. this is shown in the table below - A book format is determined by the size of the original sheet of paper used to form its pages and the number of times this is folded before trimming takes place. Folio editions are formed from signatures folded once, Quarto from signatures folded twice and Octavo Three times. 

As these are based on standard paper size they are related and represent a mathematical portion of a sheet of paper modern book sizes vary massively but often have a relationship to these sizes.

Poster Sizes: 

Standard poster sizes:

Posters also habe standard paper sizes that help to simplify production, the A series poster system is based around a single sheet of 762mmx508mm set in portrait orientation it is multiples of this that are used to produce the other sizes in the system. Such as the Four sheet  this is the most common widespread outdoor format - this is down to its compact size. Other standard multiples in this system are 12 sheet, 48 sheet - this is the standard billboard size that gives you 200ft2 of presentation space in landscape orientation. And 96 sheet.

Two other common formats are European (3,048mmx3,048mm) This is a square format that is popular in europe, but with the same vertical dimension as the 48 and 96 sheet billboards. The Golden square, this is typically illuminated at night - this attention grabbing as it is breaking the boundries of rectangular dimensions and through it scale. 

Standard ISO paper sizes: 

The international standard (ISO 216)

ISO 216 is a metric format and has been adopted by all countries in the world, except the United States and Canada. Although Mexico and the Philippines have officially adopted the ISO 216 standard, the "letter" format is still common.

The most widely used size is the A4.

The C series is used for folders, postcards and envelopes.

ANSI Paper Sizes

The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) defined a regular series of paper sizes based upon the standard 8.5" x 11" "letter" size . This series also includes "ledger" or "tabloid" paper size.

The most widely used size is ANSI A also known as "letter".

A& SRA sizes

Imperial versus metric

Tabloids

Envelope C sizes