The Designer’s Guide to Choosing Paper Stock for Printing, Pt. 1
Welcome to the School of Print Design, a show where we teach you how to design print like a pro. School of Print Design is brought to you by Smartpress, so it’s made by printers for designers.
On every episode of School of Print Design, we’ll share print expertise with you from the actual production floor at Smartpress, in the middle of all the action where world-class print is being made.
In this first episode, host Ariel will teach you everything you need to know about paper stock for printing so you can confidently make the best paper selections for your online printing design projects.
Paper is one of the most important design decisions you’ll make. It’s the vehicle for your design. It’s how your audience will experience your design, whether it’s viewed hanging on a wall or in their hands. So, you’ve gotta get it right!
Dive into the details of our paper stocks.
Key Takeaways
- Paper stock is more than “just paper.” It includes paper type, weight, color and finish, and each choice directly affects how your design looks, feels and performs in the real world.
- Paper type and weight must match the use case. Text and cover papers handle most design needs, but choosing the right weight is critical for durability, folding, layflat and overall quality.
- Heavier isn’t always better. Thicker stocks can feel more premium, but performance factors like folding, show through and budget should guide your final paper selection.
Paper Stock for Printing
In printing, you’ll hear the term stock or paper stock used constantly when talking about anything related to paper. But let’s clarify what it really means:
Paper stock refers to the base paper material – the actual physical sheet of paper used for printing. And it describes the entire paper specification, including its type, weight, color and finish. So, paper stock is your paper selection.
When you see something like Coated Matte White 100lb. Cover, that’s a paper stock spec. Each part of the paper stock refers to a different characteristic of the paper:
- Coated Matte = Finish
- White = Color
- 100 lb. = Weight
- Cover = Type
So, let’s break it down.
Common Paper Types
A good place to start is with paper type, which is also sometimes referred to as paper category. There are a ton of different types of paper, but in the North American printing industry, there are a handful of more conventional ones. These include newsprint, bond, text, cover and index, to name a few.
Each of these types of paper is manufactured differently for different purposes, so they’re good at different things.
Newsprint
First there’s newsprint. When you hear newsprint, you’ll think of newspapers and other inexpensive publications. It’s thin, super lightweight and has minimal chemical processing. It’s highly absorbent and created for high-speed printing.
But it’s not good for color fidelity or any print items that need to have any kind of longevity.
Bond Paper
Next is Bond paper. What is bond paper? It’s what you know as copy paper. It was originally created for government forms, and it’s used primarily for writing and office printing. Bond is very smooth, dense and durable, but it’s usually only manufactured in lighter weights. It’s not made for printing photos and graphics.
Text Paper
Now we have text paper. This is one of the most common types of paper you’ll be dealing with in print design projects. It’s light to medium weight and great for the pages of books, magazines or catalogs. It’s popular for flyers, stationery and more. It’s built for professional graphic and photo printing.
Writing on your paper stocks? Here’s your utensils guide.
Cover Paper
And then there’s cover paper, which you’ll sometimes hear referred to as card or cardstock. Think of cover papers like text papers, just heavier weight. This is the kind of paper you’ll want for book covers, business cards, postcards, brochures, mailers, even folders and light packaging.
At Smartpress, this is the kind of paper we use for the majority of our print marketing collateral and small format print design projects.
Index Paper
Last, we’ll quickly touch on index papers. Index paper is manufactured to be an economical and durable paper for utility uses, like index cards, file folders and tickets. This type of paper stock for printing is rigid and heavyweight but not refined like a cover paper. While you can print on it, it isn’t intended for fine graphics and image reproduction.
So, the kind of print project you’re designing will likely steer you immediately toward one of these types of papers.
Base Sheet Size
Another reason these types of paper stock for printing are important is that each of them has a different standard sheet size associated with it. This is sometimes called the base size. These paper types and their base sizes were originally developed as a system to create standards for paper manufacturing in the early North American print industry.
And believe it or not, they are still being used today as the primary way to calculate paper weight in the U.S. More on paper weight later…
Key Paper Type Takeaways for Designers
First, simply choose a paper type that makes the most sense for your design project. These paper types are tried and true, so use them for the purpose they were manufactured for.
And when it comes to print design, the majority of the time you’ll be using a text paper or cover paper. These papers have the best functional performance and print quality for design.
Next, let’s dive into paper weight!
Paper Weight and Thickness
Now that you have the full scoop on the types of paper for printing, let’s get into paper weight. Paper weight and thickness is one of the most critical aspects of a successful print piece. You’ve got to make sure the weight of the paper is appropriate for what you’re designing or you might create a transparent photo or a brochure that doesn’t stay closed.
In print design, you’ll typically see paper weight or thickness measured in three different ways: Points (pt), GSM (grams per square meter) or pounds (lb).
Points (aka Thickness)
First, let’s cover points or pt. Points don’t actually refer to paper weight, they are a unit of measurement that gauges the thickness, or caliper, of a single sheet of paper in inches. Points are measured using a special tool called a micrometer. For example, one point, or 1 pt., is equal to 1/1000 of an inch. So, 14 pt. is equal to 14/1000 or 0.014 inches.
You also might hear the unit mil in printing when talking about paper stock thickness. One mil and one point are equal. The only difference is that points are typically used when talking about paper, and mil is used when talking about other materials, like plastics.
The good news is that points are a consistent way to understand and compare thickness across any type of paper. However, thickness is not weight. Some paper can be thicker but actually weigh less than a denser paper.
GSM (Grams per Square Meter)
So, let’s talk about weight. GSM is the standard way that the rest of the world measures paper weight. GSM stands for grams per square meter. It represents the weight of one square meter of a single sheet of any paper in grams. Yep, it’s that simple.
Pounds
Last, we’ll cover pounds, which is the most common way to measure paper weight in the U.S. Unfortunately, pounds is also the most convoluted and antiquated measurement of these three methods. But it is what it is! Until the U.S. switches to GSM (which will probably never happen) us designers have to learn to use pounds.
Let’s break down how it works.
Base Weight
Remember the types of paper stock for printing we covered earlier? Each of them has a different base sheet size that is used to calculate its weight in pounds, which is shown as an lb. or # symbol.
The pound weight you’ll see shown in a paper stock spec represents the weight of a ream (500 sheets) of that paper in its base sheet size. This is also called its basis weight.
So, if we take a look at our example paper stock again, notice that it says 100 lb. Cover. That means that its paper type is cover, and cover paper has a base sheet size of 20×26 inches. So, 500 sheets of this paper in a 20×26 inch size weighs 100 pounds.
Okay, not so bad, right? Well, here’s the confusing part. Remember that each type of paper has a different base sheet size. Because of the differences in these sheet sizes, there is no easy way to compare the weight of one type of paper to another.
For example, a 100 lb. text paper is lighter than a 100 lb. cover paper because the base sheet of text paper is so much bigger than the cover sheet of the same weight rating.
Key Takeaways About Paper Weight Measurement
The most important thing to know is that if you’re designing print in the United States, you’re going to be using pounds for measuring paper weight. If you scour the web, you can find some comparison tables or a paper weight guide that will show the relationship of paper weight across paper types. You can also find formulas that remove the confusing base size variability and can help you calculate equivalent paper weights.
But at the end of the day, the key is to simply understand that with all these methods, more is more and less is less. Higher numbers mean thicker and denser paper, regardless of the paper type scale.
Paper Weight Applied to Design
So, now that you understand how paper weight is determined, let’s talk about how to choose the right weight for your designs. Much of this decision comes down to preference, but there are some important factors to, well, weigh, like feel, folding and layflat, show through and budget.
Feel
This is the subjective part of paper weight selection. The tactile heaviness or rigidity of a print piece has a lot to do with how we feel and how we expect to feel when handling different print products. Understanding your desired outcome and how the paper weight correlates is the key.
As an overall guideline, we should match the weight of your paper stock for printing to the use case of the product, but lean to the heavier end of the typical weight ranges to get that premium feel. No one wants their design to feel cheap!
For example, we all expect stationery to be somewhat lightweight and pliable. Letterheads typically weigh between 60-100# text, so lean toward that 100# text weight. But go too thick, and your print won’t feel like a letterhead anymore.
With business cards, we expect them to be thicker and rigid. It’s common for a business card to be at least an 80# cover. But getting your business card to be 110# cover or thicker will give it a more luxurious feel.
Folding and Layflat
Next let’s take into account folding and layflat with brochures and booklets for examples.
Brochure Paper Weight
If you’re designing a product that needs to fold, like a brochure or pamphlet, paper weight is a huge factor. In this case, performance should take precedence over feel. Choose a stock that feels too thin, and your product might feel cheap. Choose one that’s too thick, and your product might not close properly.
Brochures typically range between 80# text-120# cover. That’s a pretty big range! For example, we have trifold brochures printed in the following three weights: 80# text, 80# cover and120# cover.
The thickest paper does not fully close. The two lighter weight papers lay closed, but the middle weight is a bit thicker and will have a nicer feel.
One really important thing to note with brochures is that many formats have multiple panels. As the panel count goes up, you’ll have to decrease your weight to maintain proper fold performance.
For any brochure over three panels, you may want to consider a hard proof before placing a large order.
Booklet Paper Weight
Many booklet bindings are inherently layflat, like perfect bound and spiral coil. But the stapled binding in saddle stitch booklets, catalogs and magazines requires similar considerations to brochures. Instead of folds, you’ll be dealing with page count.
The higher the page count, the less flat your book will lay. Using a lighter weight paper, like an 80# text, can counter this. This could be fine for a magazine, but your pages might have some show through (more on that next). For any booklet over 30 pages, it’s probably a good idea to switch to a layflat binding.
Show Through (Opacity)
Another thing to consider is that thinner papers can show through printing from the other side of the paper, especially if the print on the reverse side has heavy ink saturation. The thinner the paper, the more likely show through is to happen. Any text weight paper is likely to have some show through.
On many prints, like magazines or catalogs, this isn’t an issue, but on posters, fine art prints, brochures and more, show through can negatively affect the quality and readability of the print.
If you want to reduce show through, consider using paper that’s heavier than 80# cover.
Budget
Last, it’s worth mentioning that thicker papers are more expensive. If you’re trying to keep the cost of your custom printing project down, going with a thinner paper will save you cash.
The Paper Stock You Choose Matters
This wraps up our first episode of School of Print Design. In this part 1 of The Designer’s Guide to Choosing Paper Stock for Printing, we introduced you to paper types and broke down how paper weight decisions can impact your print designs. Check out part 2 for all the details on Paper Color and Finish. Then you’ll be a paper selection pro!
