It is true that odd sizes can result in materials waste, because there are only 2 real sizes of Duratrans film in the world: 50” wide and 72” wide (not including a technically non-Duratrans LED-exposed backlit color media that is less than 50”).
Some Duratrans fabricators may use the term “bleed” when they mean “waste”. Technically, in the printing industry, “bleed” only means artwork that touches the edge of the final printed sheet, AFTER it’s been cut to final size for delivery. It shouldn’t have anything to do with actual waste of materials.
Blue River Digital sets a minimum size of 24” x 24” on our square-foot pricing, but this is specifically designed in tandem with our “no setup charge” policy, and it’s intended to guard against the “tiny print/same overhead” syndrome. And if your print is over 24” x 24”, then this minimum does not even apply.
Blue River Digital does not charge for waste. We feel it is up to our Graphics dept. to “nest” images efficiently on the roll, and save the customer from paying for waste. This puts the burden on us to be efficient, not on the customer. But the obvious main 3 benefits to the CUSTOMER because of this policy are:
- lower price for customer, since Duratrans waste isn’t factored in
- easier for customer to calculate and anticipate accurate price
- gives the customer freedom to size artwork however they want for their needs
At Blue River Digital, the only real “bleed” that applies to Duratrans is, whatever the cut sheet size of the graphic is (which is all you’re charged for here) already includes the frame underlap, because the “live visual area” is actually smaller than the graphic film size, due to frame overlap. So, your cut size = your graphic size = your artwork size = the size you pay for.