What is a bleed?

Bleed refers to the extra space included in a design that will be trimmed from the final product after printing. Including a bleed on your artwork ensures that your design will print to the edge of your item.

For labels on sheets, cut-to-size labels, keg collars, and stickers, we recommend including a bleed of at least 0.125.” For labels on rolls, we recommend including a bleed of at least 0.0625."

To include a bleed on your artwork, you will need to make your artwork dimensions larger than the finished size of your label. For example, if your sheet label size is 2” x 3” you will want to design your label to fit an extra 0.125” of space on each side, meaning the dimensions of your artwork should be 2.125” x 3.125.” After printing, your labels will be cut down to the final size of 2” x 3.”

Not all of our sheet label templates are able to accommodate bleed. Click here to view our free full bleed templates to browse the full selection of sheet templates that can support bleed. For more options, we recommend choosing labels on rolls or cut-to-size labels. Both of these products are always able to accommodate bleed.

PLEASE NOTE: When formatting your artwork for print, it's essential to ensure that all important artwork elements such as text, icons, and images are kept within the label safe zone to avoid anything getting cut off during the printing process. Click here for our Safe Zones FAQ for more information about safe zones and to make sure your artwork fits our safe zone guidelines.